


Under a Threadbare Sun

by headcrashed



Category: Starbound (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Original Character-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-05-23 19:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14940353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headcrashed/pseuds/headcrashed
Summary: On the day they are set to make history as the first two Novakid to gradute from the Terrene Protectorate, adoptive siblings Isobu Tert-Butyl and Umbriel Benzen are tragically ripped apart by unknown forces. As both set out to discover what happened and to find each other, it turns out their need to reunite is more dire than they originally thought - and begin to uncover secrets of their species in the process. More than that, they begin to find out just what being marooned in space will do to their fragile moral and mental foundations.





	1. The Hands That Thieve

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy I'm kinda nervous...this is my first time doing anything?? Ao3 related and moreover my first time posting fanfiction. Updates for this are basically going to be "whenever I manage it" - there may be a few timeskips involved, as well, I'm kinda wingin' it reeeally hard. Thus, bear with me as I...well, get my bearings! I would love to hear feedback and what not, and I hope you enjoy!

               Thinking back on it, only a shared glance would have spared them the rudest awakening.

               “Wake up…”

               The technical deadpan of S.A.I.L’s automatic awakening voice prods through the heavy curtains of sleep over the two graduates, prompting a flicker of their respective glows as they each came to – one more gracefully than the other.

               “Wake up. You have oversl—”

               “Shut yer procedurally generated pie hole.”

               S.A.I.L., an AI with the very tedious job of guiding grumpy protector undergrads, is interrupted by a plasma-laced hiss from one of the aforementioned – a Novakid boy named Umbriel Benzen, who shuffles angrily beneath the blankets of his bunk, brilliant pink limbs writhing like coronal ejections of some enraged sun in a tangle of 100% organic fluffalo fiber. His compatriot and informally adoptive sister, Isobu Tert-Butyl, finds herself less troubled in her first steps into the conscious world. Isobu practically springs from the top bunk, a flash of sturdy, mottled syrah-and-teal bright limbs streaking by Umbriel’s bleary vision as she lands on their dorm floor with a thunk.

               “Bri! We gotta!”

               Contrary to the rough solar winds that blast Umbriel’s words into a perpetual growl, Isobu’s voice is almost gratingly buoyant, like sun in your eyes on a summer day. This is not inconsistent with the rest of her; standing stocky and proud at a measly four foot eleven inches (not including the billowing plume that makes up her “hair,”) one must wonder if her energy is fit to burst right from her short frame. Even the wide, toothy smile her corona projects is almost worrisome – at this hour, anyways.

               “Mmmright…”

               Umbriel slinks out of his bunk, sprouting to a full seven foot five like a distant planet’s redwoods. In stark contrast to Isobu, he is rather willowy, like he’d blow away in a brisk gust of baby pink, and his corona tumbles out in thick, gentle waves over his shoulders and framing the projections of a gentle face. Despite his sweet looks, he is quite the controversial figure among his peers; the kindest words they can usually muster up are “jerk,” “confusing,” and “self-important,” usually followed by a desperate plea to _never work with him in the lab again, that’s the **fifth** class they’ve left crying_. It’s a wonder to them how the ever-popular and helpful Isobu picks him, every time, without fail, to go to bat for. To take his side, against all odds and evidence. Perhaps, they figure, it’s the fact of them being the only two Novakid in a school that doesn’t even bother to hang up their racial flag or mention them elsewhere. Perhaps it is their shared frustrations and struggles in academics. Or perhaps it is the whispers of them both being brought to the academy as “pet projects,” nothing more than test runs for the Terrene Protectorate as a part of such a volatile, carefree, but allegedly ancient race – the rumors only seem to degrade rapidly from there.

               The concerns and questions of their fellow students may forever go unanswered, as today is the day they are set to become full-fledged Protectors – their graduation day. Isobu is set to become a Soldier, rumored to even be captain of her squad, with her keen tactical skill and instincts as a leader. For all his shortcomings, Umbriel is set to become head Medic, having been picked for his incredible prowess across the field after diagnosing and ultimately saving the life of his own professor. However, their promising futures cannot begin if they can’t even get their tools and uniforms; as their weary S.A.I.L. has told them, they are both dreadfully late to their ceremony, where they will be rewarded with their own unique Matter Manipulator. However, Isobu seems unconcerned – enough to proposition her brother dramatically.

               “Pleeeease, can we get some grub ‘fore we go to the ceremony? ‘m dyin’, Briiiiii!” she whines like a whistling derecho, bouncing on the balls of her feet as Umbriel plods about their tiny dorm room to grab their uniforms. His initial response is a crackling sigh; it sounds like the hiss of a gas line being turned on, subtle and weary. Technically, he supposes, they could, especially with Novakid notoriously being fast eaters. If they didn’t bother to look normal and just absorbed it in a flash of hissing light into their gaping, gaseous mouths, they could probably be there with a few minutes to spare.

               “…Fine. Guess yer lucky Leda’s known for doin’ too many meet-n-greets before ceremonies. Pick somethin’ you can shove down in a bite.”

               His last instruction seems to dissatisfy the infamously gluttonous Isobu, who particularly had a hankering for a nice, huge, flame-resistant bowl of her favorite hot hot hotpot. Nothing could beat that special taste of Earth’s magma the chefs at school always used in it! Nonetheless, she supposed she could settle for a hot bone or two for now. Even if she had to fight a Floran for it!

\--

               As suspected, there’s hardly anyone around the cafeteria: a few freshmen Avian, cramming for a test, as well as a dozing Apex, but no one else besides a lone, weary staff member behind the large metal counter, sluggishly running a towel over the side of the sink to mop up spilled avesmingo juice from the lunch rush. There are, however, a few hors d'oeuvres and other sides being kept warm in a large buffet just across from the counter, where the two find themselves now.

               “Well I’ll be! Couple’a hot bones left, just like I’d hoped.”

               Umbriel’s glow flickers in a visible grimace, apparently not sharing in the common Novakid love of spicy food and instead reaching to dish up a plate of eggshoot salad.

               “ _Hurk_ —okay, _dragon breath,_ maybe you’ll clear out a row for us at this rate.”

               The plume in place of hair atop Isobu’s head flares indignantly, followed by rapid, electromagnetically charged hand signs that approximately translated to _go suck a mooshi’s nut_ s. Umbriel only cackles in response, a sound so jarring the freshmen Avian huddle together in fear at their table, but like music to Isobu’s plasma. He was so… _stressed_ about graduation, with so much on his shoulders. Even if it was just a dumb nut joke, it was nice to see some sun splintering through the fog that had shrouded him in the previous days. No one else could see it, perhaps, but her: the depths in his core, the nuances and softness to him that he merely put up his sour disposition as a shield for. But Earth was only one planet, and the two of them, only flecks in a vast sea of light they were sure to find. Isobu could hardly wait.

               As they’d agreed upon, the two dumped their dishes unceremoniously and in true, arcane, horrifying fashion into their gas gullets, much to the chagrin and nausea of the rest of the cafeteria stragglers. Isobu savored the feeling of whooshing, pulsing shrieks of plasma throughout her brightening limbs instead of the taste, much like an organic being would savor an adrenaline rush. Umbriel, on the other hand, dumps a mug of coffee (the actual mug included) into the jagged, neon gouge he’d formed instead of a proper mouth for his rush (the “mouth” making up much of his facial expressions was simply a refraction of light; true Novakid mouths took a bit of effort to form.) Having fueled up, the two begin to head towards the auditorium, which was only a hallway away.

               “Hey, Bri?”  
               “Mm?”  
               “You’ll remember to call if yer assigned elsewhere, right?”

               A dry, half-ionized crackle rings out from Umbriel’s plasma. Him. _Remember._ He was about to comment on how obvious it would be for the racial-variant-hyperthymesia-afflicted Novakid to remember the only being who ever gave a shit past that, but paused once he noticed the tiny, but bulky hand curled around his considerably lankier arm. He—was the younger one, and inconceivably more immature despite his intellect and memory, but Isobu…was far more tender, he felt. This proposition, he realized, was a genuine desire for the comfort she found in him stating the obvious. Facts reassured Isobu, even if they should be apparent. It’d always been, and he’d always been happy to tell her the plain truth of a situation.

               “Couldn’t forget even if I wanted. Why?”

               She is too suddenly sullen to respond verbally, and so signals again through Novakid Sign Language – an extremely rare language that relays a Novakid’s electromagnetic transmissions via blindingly fast hand movements, rather than through their little-understood voice (speculated to come from the brand; Umbriel had even worked on a paper about it.)

_Worried…you’ll be too busy. Worried you’re going to dissipate, not from this world, but from me. Worried your energy will go cold in my world._

               Isobu’s wording has always been strange, more so under pressure or stress. Where she spoke most at ease was around him, but it was apparent that even that factor had little bearing on the looming weight of the world – and universe – now placed upon her drooping shoulders. Her brand generates no refractions, no features – her melancholy becomes apparent through the weight she leans on him instead. While he could be quite an outlier in his carefree, forgetful race, Umbriel knew full well the trouble Isobu had with assimilation as well – on earth and with her origins. The biggest trouble for her was change. Novakid were so much _about_ change and futures and freedom from schedules and safety, so much so that it seemed to be their only consistent factor. Isobu, he’d concluded, had not only an innate aversion to this, but it was further cemented into her with her upbringing. Having lived a normal life, of which there were no records, he surmised she could scrape along with erratic change to make others happy up (if she was as chummy as she is now) until her fateful Supernova Stage: dying and being reborn as the neutron star she is today, picked up – totally by chance – barely formed and even less coherent, by the Grand Protector herself. No wonder she’d want some consistency after that.

               Her grip tightens, to a level unbearable if he were not a Novakid, jarring him from his long musing. He takes his free arm and pulls her awkwardly into his chest, the force of the move sending swathes of fairy-floss plasma tumbling over her head.

               “Iso…I know you’re worried. I know everything’s changin’ right now, and I ain’t gonna tell you nothin’ will change ‘bout us, ‘cause I ain’t that kinda gasbag – I ain’t never lied to you, and I ain’t ‘bout to start now.”

               Umbriel’s glow wavers weakly, in a gesture of nerves for a being with none to speak of. The stress of this entire week, of not having an answer for her, of having to protect her for once, compounds in a flimsy squeak of feedback from his brand; the words would not come. Then, all at once, they do.

               “I ain’t had anyone besides you, and maybe like two other folks. My birth family’s dead. Raiders killed ‘em. Killed my whole village. You know that. You don’t know ol’ Leda tried her mom shtick on me, like she did to you, after they brought me here, and when it failed, I was left to drift in a sea of fucking nobodies as a failed pet project.”

               The coronal swathes resting on Isobu begin to hiss and twitch, prompting her to crane her head up from her spot on his chest.

               “Now, I don’t blame ol’ girl. I know – and don’t no one else seem to realize, _I know_ I am a problem child. I don’t blame no one, not once have I blamed someone for givin’ up on me. But…you, and Professor Quetzal, and…”

               He drifts off, having not spoken the next name in years.

               “…that Hylotl chemistry student, Akemi, they ain’t gave up on me. And you know what? Akemi _fucking died._ On _my_ table. After that stupid shipyard accident. Quetzal’s goin’ into early retirement after today, ‘cause of complications he hid from me like he hid that damn tumor. Everyone fucking dies or leaves. You think—you think I’ll be too busy for the only person I give a shit about that ain’t got a heart to get an atrial myxoma – a tumor – or blood potassium to lose after a massive transfusion, and the only person who’s fought – what was that Human term, tooth and nail for me no matter what? No way. Even if I gotta cancel heart surgery, I’m callin’ you.”

               It’s only after his blathering that he notices the mixture of awe and mild horror dawning in tiny, uncertain refractions on her face. Now sheepish, Umbriel tries to clarify.

               “Isobu Tert-Butyl, you’re somethin’ special. You are my sister. You ain’t blood, but we ain’t got no dang blood anyways. You picked me, and I’m gonna pick you every time, no matter what. Got it?”

               Isobu, still dumbfounded, nods rapidly and wriggles out of his grip, freeing her arms to give him a particularly flashy pair of thumbs up and a cocky grin. Umbriel chuckles; a light, stuttering, strident noise, like the zap of a stun gun.

               “Good. Now, let’s get this damn show on the road.”

\--

               As previously suspected, the Grand Protector, Leda Portia, is not backstage just yet, but rather swarmed by eager officials – both of Earth and elsewhere. There are a few other students hanging out by the stairs, some admiring the portraits, some waiting their turn to speak to Leda. They all turn to face the latecomers, who are not helped by S.A.I.L.’s sudden reappearance to remind them of the obvious.

               “It appears you’ve remembered to don your uniforms. It is impressive that you both can remain so serene despite being so late. Well done, you two.”

               Isobu cringes, her plume flickering jaggedly, while Umbriel quietly sucks in a sharp breath. An Apex engineer, Roslav, clasps a firm, furred hand over the shorter Novakid’s shoulder.

               “You’re really cutting it close, Isobu. You should—”

               “We got it, Roslav,” Isobu chirps, cutting him off midsentence. It turns out to be in his favor, as the mere realization that he was about to chastise Umbriel “Doctor Horrible” Benzen as well prompts him to slink backwards a few steps, bold features visibly paling. Umbriel, seemingly aware of this, smiles a pleasant smile in his direction – which seems to have an opposite effect.

               “ISOBU!!!”

               A multi-racial gaggle of soon-to-be Soldiers swarms Isobu, a sparkle in each of their eyes at their fears of their fearless leader going AWOL being quashed. She is dazed by their sudden arrival but offers one of her trademark wide grins nonetheless.

               “Howdy! Wait – y’all really waited out here in this stuffy lil’ hall for me to show up…? Shucks, I would’a grabbed more hot bones then!”

               An Avian, Xipilli, places her hands on her hips and huffs in mock indignation. “Hot bones?! By Kluex, you better not be deserting us somewhere on a Tier 5 planet for a hot bone, Captain!”

               Isobu reels. “Well, hold up now, I ain’t Captain of no nothin’ yet! Who even said I was…?!”

               Umbriel can begin to hear the answer to her plea, but at that point, he’s already started to slink towards the large airlock to the auditorium. His self-importance was not without a modicum of awareness; he could tell when he wasn’t in the picture anymore. The airlock opens without much fanfare, and he slips up the stairs to hop up on one of the tables by the guards – in the furthest corner of the room. The Glitch guard next to him gives him a look and grips their Matter Manipulator, yet ultimately decides to say nothing.

               Isobu, meanwhile, had finally convinced the gaggle to seat themselves in the front row – a Floran informed her “they’d sssaved it all for her!” – and sat in a middle seat, legs spread, and arms crossed as she sinks back into her seat. Said Floran, Agaric, leans over to make a snarky comment about “shutting her lightsss off,” prompting a friendly slug in the arm from Isobu – who forgets her density and strength. Agaric is soon crumpled in their chair, wheezing and cackling at the same time, much to Isobu’s alarm. She is barely able to pull them up to examine them when they all notice the lights begin to dim, indicating the Grand Protector has arrived and it is time to listen.

               Leda takes a moment while the audience breaks into polite applause, with only Isobu and Umbriel starkly visible among a sea of otherwise glow-less creatures. She smiles warmly to Isobu, who smiles back, before launching into her speech.

               “My fellow Protectors…today we come together to witness the Protectorate grow. For over 500 years we have stood proud here on Earth, drawing together races of all kinds in the name of peace.”

               Umbriel sneers from the back row, but soon stiffens when he feels something – no, was it something? No, possibly not. Ship landings were frequent and tended to jam his frequencies. Oversensitivity would be his downfall. He settles back in against the clean, cold steel wall, the “somethings” rapidly dissipating.

               “Our task: to protect our fellow beings; to support, house, and educate those that seek our aid, and to foster accord between those who aspire to it. Today, in the name of peace, we welcome our newest compatriots, and present them each with our greatest tool…”

               Leda hoists the tool into the air: a gleaming Matter Manipulator, apparently polished for this very occasion, and beams as she continues.

               “…A Matter Manipulator!”

               It is at this very moment that she receives a jolt from the ground that nearly shakes her from her podium. In fact, the entire auditorium begins to groan, distant shrieks of metal struggling against an unknown force cutting the air, with violent tremors loosening nearly every student from their seat. Umbriel barely catches himself; Isobu is immediately on her feet, sparks rising like hackles from her corona.

               “What on ea—”

               No sooner than Lena hopes to evoke their forsaken planet’s name does a multitude of gigantic tentacles burst forth from the crust, immediately sending screaming students and staff alike into the rafters and down the chasms opened by the force. Some are still tangled in the godless appendages; Agaric, being one of them, calls down to the stunned and enraged Isobu, who would hope to release them of their fleshy, hell-borne shackles.

               “ISSSOBU…!”

Warily, she looks up. Isobu has barely begun to comprehend the scale of the destruction due to the wall of bent metal and foul flesh formed behind the first row, but she can already sense there is not a single pulse around her in the squad she’d hoped to lead. Agaric seems to know this too, giving her a final, pained plea as the tentacle recedes with a squelch.

               “Isssobu! Sssave yourssself inssstead…!”

               She watches the flash of mottled red and green foliage disappear, dumbstruck, before a second voice – a second pulse to lose – calls to her.

               “You there, Graduate…!”

               It’s Leda Portia. From her own tall, tentacle hell, she can spot two distinct, yet-unbroken glows in the audience – Isobu Tert-Butyl, a shining pupil among the Soldier class, and Umbriel Benzen, the ill-tempered, but promising Medic. With her own doom soon approaching, she cannot fathom having to choose who she’d save – _but for what it’s worth,_ she thinks, _I’m glad it’s them_. She knows the guards have Matter Manipulators where Umbriel is standing – he of all beings would know that as well.

               “Grab that Matter Manipulator and get to safety! Go!”

               _Graduate._ The lack of a plural hardly has time to sink into each of their heads before Leda Portia, in an unceremonious squelch, sinks into the crust, her arm still outstretched. Isobu gets no time to grieve the only maternal figure she’d had in this life before S.A.I.L. beams to her specific frequency as a matter of student safety protocol.

               “It is not safe to remain here! Please take the Matter Manipulator and proceed to the shuttle pad!”

               Unbeknownst to her, Umbriel receives the same message on his own frequency. Grimacing, he turns to his left, where the guard with a nasty evil eye is now slumped over, dead, the tool in question still dangling from their belt. It’s a quick assessment; massive blunt force trauma from the sheer force, weight and speed at which the tentacle ejected from the earth, but he wasn’t keen on checking out which of numerous injuries to their circuits was the one to do them in. The Matter Manipulator is unclipped instantly and takes not much longer to fire up, whereupon he slowly proceeds towards the door as he inspects the settings and stats on it.

               Isobu, meanwhile, has taken the dropped Manipulator from the stage and clambered back down, heading for the door at the lower corner on the opposite side from them. The smoke and destruction are unthinkable, so she chooses not to think on it at all; her training kicks in, the same they’d put her through as a Soldier that would one day reach hostile planets and protect those that lived there. Shuttle pad. Exit. Quickest route. Find a weapon along way.

               It never occurs to her to look for her brother. Perhaps, out of sanity and safety, it cannot.

               Said brother, meanwhile, weaves carefully through a gutted hallway, already shutting off the sounds of hell around him; gurgling, writhing tentacles, an endless choral of screams, doomed ships crashing. He was prepared to land among this on a planet someday and tend to the wounded. He was not, however, prepared to land among it on Earth. On his graduation day. _Their_ graduation day. A sickening feeling sinks into his core as he realizes his stupid moping had separated him and Isobu, just like he swore wouldn’t happen. No, no time to beat yourself up. Clear a path, and then find her. And then…

               “PROFESSOR QUETZAL…!!”

               In the hallway leading to the shuttle pad, Isobu finds no time to be found as a familiar, elderly figure groans and writhes weakly below a collapsed rafter. Her shocked scream appears to reach him; he chuckles weakly as his prodigy’s sister rushes to his side.

               “My dear…I’m glad it’s your brave soul sending me off to my maker.”

               The teal glow around her shrinks in abject horror. “Wh…Maker? No…no, _no, no,_ Bri saved you, you – yer gonna retire happily, on some lush-class planet, and I’m gettin’ you outta here so you…!”

               Professor Quetzal lifts a limp, feathered hand to stop her, placing it atop hers. “I’m not going anywhere, dear Isobu…you, however, must flee. I know…” he is cut short by an awful retching noise, blood burbling up and spluttering out across her brand and uniform in the ensuing coughs. Isobu pays no mind.

               “No – dammit, _no_ , you stay with me! I ain’t no good at medical stuff, you know that, but – we – no, don’t you…DON’T YOU CLOSE YER EYES!”

               Her shriek goes without even a cringe or flutter in response from the now late professor; his beak is slightly agape, but his eyes are shut quietly, as though in a pleasant dream. Isobu begins to stagger backwards, sickly squeaks in place of words eeking out from her brand. For better or for worse, S.A.I.L. has plenty to fill in for her.

               “Detecting multiple forms in rapid ascent. I have unlocked a nearby weapons crate. Please arm yourself!”

               No sooner does their message reach her do the forms burst through, in thick, ugly streams of tentacles. Were she to pause and listen, Isobu could hear their strange, writhing, squirming whispers; though she does not do so, the promises of death and destruction still appear to affect her. Streams loosened off her corona begin to billow ominously in shades of wine and seafoam, a sure sign of her temper flaring. It is so potent she is barely able to think as she grasps for the broken broadsword inside the chest, hauling it out with an explosive grunt and raising it skyward.

               “HOOOAAUGH…!”

               The sword’s poor condition only seeks to whet her fire, taking about three blows for the smaller tentacle in front of her. What gas was among her composition seemed fully ignited; her otherwise featureless body was visibly molten beneath her shell, flailing in streams of howling, highly charged gases. She swung voraciously, as though seeking blood to repay her chipped steel, though not a drop of qualm could be found among the sprays of goo and swipes from the tentacles.

               “WARNING! Mass approaching! Mass—”

               S.A.I.L.’s automated projectile warning is cut off as Isobu wheels around to face said mass – and it is far too late by then. A wayward tentacle skids over the surface of her face and brand, leaving a superficial, but wide scrape along the way. Isobu hardly has time to fall to her knees before S.A.I.L. updates to a more appropriate warning.

               “WARNING! Corona has been compromised. Estimated loss of vital gases, 3 ml per minute. I advise you find a nanowrap bandage—”

               A horrible wail of pain cuts through the pleasant robotic voice. Isobu is clutching her brand desperately, mouth a gash of gnashing heavy minerals and molten plasma as she wails again. It is infinitely more horrible than the last: a wail with its own fundamental state of matter, a wail that cut through physics and sought to shake the graves of the Ancients who’d forsaken her, shrill with electricity and blaring with the fury of solar flares. It rattles even S.A.I.L.’s circuits, to say nothing of the electronics now bursting rapid-fire along the hallway.

               “OOOOOAAAAUGgggOODDD!!! God...GOD...SAIL!! GOD!! It hurts…! It HURTSSHhh…! _HHHELP ME!!_ ”

               Her howling is barely coherent, even to such a highly advanced translation system. S.A.I.L., however rattled, is programmed to try anyways.

               “I am detecting a nanowrap bandage in the pod directly to your left, on the stand. Please see to breaking it open.”

               With a loud clatter, she smashes it open with a swing of her fist, leaving the solid steel shelf that held it in shambles. Sure enough, a nanowrap bandage tumbles forth, along with a glowing hypodermic needle full of red liquid that she can recognize – barely, through the scratch – as a regeneration stim pack.

               “I advise you wait until takeoff procedures are finalized to use the stim pack. For now—”

               “WOOAGGHUH???”

               S.A.I.L. is cut off by another incoherent bellow from Isobu. As she’d stated before, her medical expertise was lacking; in place of a proper cleaning, she wipes furiously at her brand and scratch with her sleeve before slapping the nanowrap bandage down haphazardly, yanking it over the entirety of her wound and snapping it into place with all the delicacy of a sailor hoisting the sails last minute before a storm. The fabric goes to work in seconds, stitching up the coronal gash in little under a half a minute, but the brand appears to be taking longer. No matter – Isobu is on a war path anyways.

               “Yer FEELIN’ LUCKY, PUNK?!”

               Possibly delirious with pain, but nonetheless pulsing with some arcane equivalent of adrenaline, Isobu thumps a fist against her chest boisterously before wrapping it around the hilt of her blade. Something in the depths of even her fiery being burned, flame wrought in flame – through her delirium, she recognized it as the same energy that’d protected the rest of her squad from night terrors when they’d been separated from their assigned instructor on a forest-class planet.

               This foul being’s screams would play their dirge.

               At the slightest twitch in her direction, Isobu is off like a drunken shot, whacking with reckless abandon. There are the barest rudiments of grace to her deadly dance, doused heavily with the pain clouding her judgement. Could she do so in such a moment, she’d describe it as rapid rotting; even though it was hardly more than a scratch and in the process of healing (to say nothing of how her sheer density saved her life,) the strike from the creature’s tentacle felt like it was rapidly decomposing, collapsing, her brand feeling structurally unsound – but it wasn’t. She wasn’t even organic, and yet, this creature’s wrath invoked in her empathy towards asteroid-torn buildings and burning flesh. Chaotic decay; dying _screaming_ and _aflame_.

               Umbriel’s soul felt as though it was dying much quieter.

               A lone, tentacle-ridden body of an Apex medic lay in the medical ship bay he walks through. It appears this beast struck so fast no one even had time to consider medical attention or planning. Not that he can really bring himself to care, though. Nothing stirs in him but distant, thick fog. The agonized face of the corpse sparks nothing but cold curiosity.

               “…Hrm.”

               He glances to the lab adjacent to the pair; small, but it likely had a few supplies he could bring aboard the medical ship he was about to steal. Although not programmed for it, S.A.I.L. seems to read his mind.

               “You are once again awfully serene considering your circumstances and the percentage of unknown organic substances splattered on your clothing and sword. My records indicate this behavior to be typical, but I must advise you once more to hasten your pace.”

               “…Yeah.” Umbriel mutters in response, his voice like a distant intercom.

               Instead of heeding the A.I.’s advice, he steps carefully into the tiny lab, veering carefully around a dead chemist that is face-down on their desk. There are a few good machines in here he was familiar with, but the rest he’d hoped for would have to be stolen off some Miniknog saps. At least there was a decent refrigerated storage unit for samples. Just as he fires up his Matter Manipulator to take them, his rather chatty S.A.I.L. pipes up again.

               “I am curious if this is your definition of hastening. Nevertheless, judging by what you are picking up, I must also inform you of the empty vials you might find useful in the second cabinet to your left.”

               “Got it, S.A.I.L.”

               Just as he’d been told, Umbriel finds plenty of vials for sampling this… _thing_ in the cabinet – and ultimately decides to take the cabinet, as well. The more supplies and storage, the better, he supposed. Nothing about his newfound preparedness seemed to comfort him as he approaches his fallen brother-in-arms once more.

               “Well…”

               The first emotion in a long time comes to him, and about as fiercely as a cup of chamomile tea: qualm. He has cut up dead people before. He doesn’t _care_ about cutting up dead people (too much, anyways,) particularly with his forensic and neurology studies. But this…was strange. The faintest creeper of dread twists up the column of gas in his back. Umbriel senses a sort of…quiet, foul death, settling over the top of his head and crawling along the floor and corpse like a toxic, low-bearing fog. The whole room felt like another, smaller planet, some mutated-class mini-biome straight from a nightmare. Ugh, placebo effects – he’d be fine. Whatever. Just get it over with and get on the ship.

               It’s a simple procedure: delicately cutting off a smaller strand of the tentacle beast’s appendages and dropping it with tweezers into the tube, then taking a small syringe full of what appeared to be vital fluids. He had a sinking feeling he’d be having to find answers for this thing on his own. More than that, he realized he hadn’t actually been outside since this thing started.

               Unbeknownst to each other, the two lone graduates of the Protectorate Class of 2555 step out into the final walkways to the docking stations on opposite sides of the building, alive but both dubious in health. Before they are even able to take in the reddened skies, S.A.I.L. pops up with the worst possible answer to their respective dilemmas.

               “The scale of this disaster is immeasurable; the destruction occurring is beyond my capacity to quantify. You must leave this planet immediately.”

               Umbriel quietly surveys the tentacle-laden buildings as he walks, confirming to himself that he would, indeed, only be able to rely on himself for answers. Isobu, meanwhile, staggers through broken glass and over crumpled metal, feeling molten liquid pricking around the edges of her brand and running down her face. Crying. She’s… _crying_. A bodily response she’d picked up during her time on earth, mostly through echolalia. The searing streams hasten down, choked sobs wracking her gaseous frame as she limps past the hellish chorus of screams she could hear across the city and into the loading bay of the steam-engine-styled ship. Umbriel, however, ducks into his medical ship and towards the captain’s chair with little more than an emotionless grunt.

               “Preflight checks bypassed. Initiating takeoff procedures. Please buckle your seatbelt.”

               Both ships, at about the same time, roar to life after their respective takeoff inputs; Isobu’s lets off a shrill screech of a steam whistle. She’d always admired the Novakid-specific ships but had rarely gotten to be this close to one. It went without saying they weren’t used very often in a facility that barely saw them as worthy. Her raging grief cools into a swirling mixture of sadness and awe as the ship screams around her; Umbriel can only stare off into space as his mind leaves before his ship.

               “Initiating launch in five…four…three…two…one…”

               With a loud blast, the two ships lift off from the ground, hurtling rapidly towards the great beyond. They are, incidentally, aimed to fly out past each other, in opposite directions. Were their two pilots to look out of the front windows at the same time, they would confirm each other’s survival – and possibly their own sanity.

               As it would happen, the chances of that are slim.

               Isobu is fumbling with her stim pack, luminous fingers aquiver with just about every emotion she could – and couldn’t – name. Relax. Steady. She removes the cap with just about every ounce of calm she can, steadying the needle in the direction of her face. Unfortunately, there were no major arteries or veins to insert it into on a Novakid, so stim packs were usually injected in the chest area or within range of the brand. Umbriel had taught her that…and with that memory came the challenge of actually making it into the middle of the Omega shape of her brand while more tremors wracked her body. Do it. Do it. Do it for him.

               No sooner than the needle pierces her shell does a scream of supernova proportions ring out aboard a lone medical ship.

               Everything compounds like it had in the hallway, but worse than anything he could have ever imagined. He never bothered to look back, to look for her, he’d _sworn_ he’d stop at nothing to see her and he could see _teal plasma in streaks_ , on that _one floor_ , and, and, and…another shriek rings out, one S.A.I.L. has wordlessly adjusted the ship’s major components to handle – but it is horrible. Unlike Isobu’s warrior wailing, this is that of a child; a lone proto-star, a threadbare sun, roaring to life in the collapse of its parent cloud where it never asked to be. He never asked _to be_. Not once has he thanked any god for being found, for surviving, except for when he met Isobu, and Akemi, and Professor Quetzal. Two of the three are dead, and the last – though he does hold hope of her survival – is sure to want him dead for his leaving her behind. Why was he piloting out of this planet? Why?

               “WHY?!”

               It’s the only one of his shrieks that makes itself out to be a language. It sounds like power lines collapsing, like the shrill whine of a tornado before it touches down, and it quakes the very wall panels of the ship. Unbeknownst to him, the nose of his ship is set to align with Isobu’s very shortly – and she is in no better condition to look.

               “God DAMMIT!”

               The regeneration liquid was like some ancient acid inside of her, hurting while it healed. It scraped some of the metallic “scabs” off her brand, the outer edges slowly returning to their neat forms, which felt what she assumed was like if she were to rip stitches out of a human’s wounds. She tilts her head back, bellowing with one hand over her brand, very nearly gouging out of her own corona with the grip she held over her face.

               The two noses align, within a few yards of each other. A pink flicker in one, a teal fury inside the other. Perhaps due to being aboard a Novakid cruiser, Isobu’s S.A.I.L. has just a modicum of desire to alert its new owner of the passing life form.

               “Captain—”

               But for all its quantum computing, it is just a modicum too slow. The ships shriek by each other, into the upper atmosphere, backlit by the explosions of those less fortunate below them. A glance would be all it would have taken, and yet, the two are set to find a very different route to their awakening.


	2. Your Gauze, My Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh JEEZ almost two months later and I'm only just now updating...I am the world's slowest writer, sorry! A couple thousand extra words over last chap's count to make up for it I suppose. You'll see the plot starts to diverge from the main line here, so just be prepared for that! I like to make use of chapter notes cause I like to yell into the void I guess but if a specific chapter contains something that needs warning about I will definitely utilize it for that instead! As always, feedback, questions and kudos are greatly appreciated!

 

               Isobu’s journey starts with not a single blessing to count on.

               Instead, she is jarred halfway into consciousness by her ship hurtling through space, the straining of damaged engines against the speed of light itself ringing inside her shell, rattling on through like marbles on glass as her head sloshes once to the left, then to the right as she begins to slip in and out of fitful sleep. Tired, so tired, she’s never been this tired. Her body has never felt like such an ancient war ground; she can feel it crumbled along the uneven base of her teleporter, limbs shrapnel and strewn every which way to add to the massive discomfort. God knows what she did to get here, and god knows how she’d get off this complete non-bed. Whatever. That’s a task for awake, not-hungover-from-a-stimpack Isobu. Hungover Isobu, however, manages to catch a glance of something distinctly lumpy, green and gassy – not to mention alive – in the corner of the ship before she passes out cold.

               That alive thing turns out to be a snugget – a common pet among frontier folks, some ungodly cross between a dog, a cat, and a ball of fire that likes chewing cords. She wakes up some stretch of time later to a weight on her chest, only to discover herself spontaneously declared the owner of this green, hungry, fat snugget, who twitches its stumpy tail in excitement and burbles at her.

               “…Well, howdy there, lil’ fella. You sure are a sight for a sore…me.”

               Turns out, the fat snugget provides just enough encouragement for her to sit up, sending him tumbling down onto her lap with a squeak. It’s then that the echoes of her entropic pain of her encounter in the shuttle pad begins to rise again. This time it’s a dull sear, like someone’s pressing her brand into a hot pan, filled with popping oil – but from a room or two away, perhaps. _Jeez_. At least she isn’t about to cry for every crumbled building in the universe anymore. As she adjusts to being in the present once more, Isobu surveys her ship, only to be interrupted by S.A.I.L.’s automated idle message.

               “Please reboot the system.”

               She’d been curious about its silence, but supposed she had her answer now. The rest of the ship is fairly quiet as well, with only the hum of the boosters keeping it afloat and static from her busted systems to break the silence of space.

               “Huh. Well, fella, yer gonna have’ta move,” she mumbles, gently nudging her new pet from her lap. Standing turns out to be a task all its own; the rough position she’d taken upon her impromptu nap had taken its toll, sending little jolts of pain swirling in her plasma as she stumbled to an upright stance. _Oof_ – her Protectorate uniform certainly did not help, being caked with goo and starched in blood. One of the first things on her to-do list besides repairs would be getting comfortable clothes. After a stumble or two in the darkness, she finally reaches the glowing S.A.I.L. interface – just in time for it to be sarcastic, even in downtime.

               “To make use of your S.A.I.L., please reboot the system. Studies show rebooting the system is likely to increase satisfaction by—”

               “Al- _right_ , you bag a’ bolts.”

               With a few clicks, the system begins to reboot – and with its revival comes the ship lights, the flickering of their awakening drowned out by the whoosh of systems revving to life and running status checks. She barely has time to be relieved before S.A.I.L. begins to speak again.

               “Welcome, Captain Isobu. I am S.A.I.L., your Ship-based Artificial Intelligence Lattice. I manage the maintenance of your ship. I am also programmed to offer you information and advice.”

               _Captain._ She doesn’t even flinch this time. She’s earned that title in spades of blood, she supposed, and she didn’t even have a crew yet. Isobu leans her weight on her hands at either side of the keyboard protruding outward, her feet crossed as she leans into the pink glow of her designated Novakid A.I.

               “Howdy, S.A.I.L. See you must’a got my name and info already from…well. Other S.A.I.L. Can you tell lil’ ol’ Captain Isobu here what our status is?”

               S.A.I.L. doesn’t miss a beat. “Earth was attacked by an unknown force and was subsequently annihilated. The ship’s navigation systems were damaged in our escape. Our location is currently unknown.”

               Just as it finishes its report, a loosened weapons rack – likely placed in the ship for Isobu’s convenience – creaks and falls to the ground with a pathetic clank. Isobu and S.A.I.L. both stare at it for an inordinate amount of time. Then, she speaks up.

               “…Ain’t that somethin’. Well, S.A.I.L., gimme a second to rummage in my locker to see what they left me and then we’ll chat a bit more.”

               A particularly large blood cake crackles as she reaches up to flick open the door of the ship locker, prompting a silent waver from her corona. This uniform was starting to feel like a coffin, coagulated in her numerous failures. Even the Protectorate logo emblazoned upon the crimson chest plate was now blotted out in streaks of dark rust and alien seafoam-green. What awaited her in the locker was a welcome relief: a couple cans of cheap, but well-preserved food, a flashlight, a sack of pixels set atop a few rolls of bandages, and – to her surprise – a stack of neatly folded clothes and a pair of good ol’ fashioned cowboy boots. Wait a second…this stack looked _familiar_. Swallowing down a lump of gas, she reaches for the stack first, whooshing plasma drowning out the drone of the ship around her.

               “Did…did he sneak in here and leave this for me…?”

               Surely, Umbriel would have been able to recognize the singular functioning Novakid cruiser on campus as the one intended for her; he would instead have been assigned to a medical ship if he even got assigned outside of earth. With his lack of inherent regard for rules, he also wouldn’t have cared for any possibility of being caught or punished for breaking and entering – or contraband, for that matter. It also happened to be impeccably folded (Isobu could barely fold a shirt,) and contained several sets of clean shirts, pants, socks, her favorite sweater, and her favorite hiking jacket. There was one more item, tucked into the breast pocket of the jacket. Isobu struggled to contain her emotions as she gingerly unfolded the accessory: a beautiful sage green bandana, one she recognized as Umbriel’s. Specifically, he’d always used to wear it when tending to his plot in the academy’s communal garden, to keep his long corona from billowing in the way of his vision; she remembered that despite its similar coloring, she’d somehow always been able to spot it among the lush foliage.

               “He…he really is somethin’ special, ain’t he,” Isobu croaks, fingers curling desperately into the silky fabric, as though she could feel some trace of him left in the stitching. She hasn’t even stopped to look at the note yet, which is still laying inside the locker. She doesn’t feel she’s strong enough to, as she is.

               “Captain…it is beyond my capability to quantify your responses to these items, but I suggest you use that first bandage to cover up your still-healing wound before you beam down. Perhaps a can of food would be in order, as well.”

               S.A.I.L. jars her from her longing, something she winds up finding a welcome relief. Isobu is puzzled, but begins to peel off her tarnished uniform pieces, her voice periodically muffled by fabric as she changes into the clothes so thoughtfully set aside for her.

               “Yeah, I think I can manage that. Why’re you so talkative, anyways? Is it ‘cause I’m the only one here? Or ‘cause there ain’t no workin’ systems on the ship you can talk to?”

               There is a faint whirr, something she likens to a mechanical sigh. “S.A.I.L. is programmed according to individual captains, including their health records – both mental and physical, with typical signs of captain distress programmed into my visual scans. Mine indicate you have a habit of forgetting of your mortality.”

               Isobu gapes dumbly at the A.I., glow dimming in shame. “Damn…didn’t come aboard to get roasted like a snaunt over a spit.” Nonetheless, she heeds the suggestions. It takes a little extra effort to wrap the bandage around her head, mustering the best of efforts to remember – in spite of her species. Remember Umbriel’s deft, gaunt hands, how he always made wound dressing look like an art. Her hands shake as she slowly unravels the bandage inch by inch, pulling each round taut against the solid shell of her corona, layering clean, tan fabric over itself until she’s sure the wound is covered and cushioned. Some of her brand being covered feels…weird. Like the world is now partially cloaked, muffled all over. However, it was certainly better than any other physical sensation that could possibly encounter the still raw, scraped part of the brand, like sunlight, rain, wind or worse. With her weak spot covered, she could set about rustling up some grub: grabbing an orange-labeled can, she cares not for decency, taste or even opening the can as she tosses it whole into the gullet she opens. It dissolves without much fanfare, nary even a flame in the pit of her restless plasma as she picks up her crusty sword, examining it in the dim light. The monster guts had stuck quite well…if she hoped to keep this until she could repair it properly, she would have to get the blade scrubbed and wiped properly by a pond somewhere. Protectorate-issued swords were rustproof, but with how the wound left by that _thing_ felt, even on a solid metallic brand, she was sure it possessed some sort of degrading properties that could not fare well for even Protectorate steel. She does not turn her attention from her weapon, even as she speaks to her S.A.I.L.

               “S.A.I.L. Update me on status and mission.”

               “We are currently in orbit around an unknown world. The ship is heavily damaged, and we are unable to leave orbit. I suggest you beam down to the planet's surface using the teleporter, and search for supplies and perhaps a means of fixing the ship.”

               As it reads off the mission details without hesitation, Isobu strolls idly in front of the ships windows, surveying what she could of the planet’s surface as she turns the blade over in her fingers, dulled entirely by the sheer thickness of the mire crusting its surface. All students had a rudimentary knowledge of identifying planets even when the navigation system was down, but lush-class planets were almost always unmistakable. It had to be either that or a forest-class. She’d eat her hat if she was wrong.

               “…Well, guess there really ain’t much else to do, huh?”

               Stepping over the dozing snugget on the floor, she hopped onto the smooth, glowing floor plate of the teleporter and – with the press of a button – dissipated in a flash of blinding seafoam light.

               --

               Landing always threw her off. Soldiers had to be used to teleporting, as they were essentially the infantry and guards of the Protectorate. Being stationed here and there meant lots and lots of dispersing your body across space and time barriers and right into a pile of angry Poptops, or perhaps a giant puddle in a storm, or worse – regardless, you had to be on your feet sooner than later. It was all in your training. But they’d never trained her to handle teleporting after, say, the emotional and physical damage of almost dying in your agonizing escape of your doomed planet without the only person who you could feasibly save. Needless to say, she was not on her feet soon at all.

               “…Ooooooof.”

               Isobu languishes in the liquid she’d landed in, uncaring if it’d be here, in this stupid pond, where she’d meet her untimely and very unheroic end—wait _. Pond?_ Isobu stands up with a start, blearily observing the body of water around her, then the planet. Clear and cool water in the middle of fertile soil, surrounded by lush grass, with meadows dotted in trees as far as the eye could see, and a burbling brook in the distance. Not more than a few feet from the pond’s edge sat an overgrown, but nicely built little house. With a bit of fixing up, it could pass for a shelter. There was even a little patch of dirt and the beginnings of a fence. S.A.I.L. had certainly dropped her somewhere ideal. The problem was also remembering that it was there.

               “Uhh… _uhhhhhh_ …fuck. Plant fiber n’ copper. Novakid flag. Bookmark. Okay. Uh—clean sword, _then_ bookmark.”

               Like a toddler might stack their gaudy toy bricks, the plan comes together in Isobu’s weary head step by unsteady step. It seemed to help to verbalize it to no one but the crisp air, providing a little teetering rhythm for her to scrub her sword off to. Whatever that murderous planet-razer was, it sure was goopy; most of the outer muck came off thanks to a handful of leaves grabbed from the bank, but it took a little ginger finger-plucking and pond water to make sure not a trace of it remained before a generous, careful slosh in the depths of the pond. Although she was not particularly concerned about rust, Isobu takes the time to wipe the clean blade painstakingly with the edge of her shirt, caring not for potential injury or even scratches. Decked out in rugged gear, the shirt was the softest thing on her besides Umbriel’s handkerchief now tied around her neck – she couldn’t risk scratches. _Leda’d cringe at the lack of proper weapon care,_ she thinks, _but Leda died n’ left me all buzzard bait with a broke ass cruiser, no functional weapons n’ a whole lotta questions. What’d ol’ girl know ‘bout all that, anyways?_

               A thought chills Isobu to her core. _What if she knew it was comin’?_

               “No…she couldn’ta known, right?” Unthinkingly, Isobu wanders out of the pool after sheathing the sword on her back, mumbling to herself as she finds a lacking path down the hill. Where exactly she intended to go, she wasn’t sure of, simply finding a physical pace to match her endless, roaming questions. “It got her ass killed too, right? Well, what if she was in over her head…? What if— _WHOOP!_ ” A screech that sounds more like an electrified slide-whistle rings out in the placid plains as Isobu steps right into a hole – only to find out it leads to a short tunnel, that leads to a shallow cave, by tumbling like a big, neon, oafish rock down the entire way, hitting loose a few blocks of sod and roots with generous quantities of swearing and violently charged screeches that’d be guaranteed to blow up the entire Protectorate first floor computer lab.

               She finally lands with an ugly grunt on her back in the glittering cave, groaning as she rolls over in the surprisingly soft dirt below her and groping for a block of cobblestone or something to help her up – only to grab hold of a decently sized, glittering rock, which bore a few chunks of copper she could make out in the light of her own body. This perks her up almost immediately, sending a wave of effervescent seafoam over the walls of the entire tiny cave, and she scrambles to her feet, thankful all the while she had no bones, organs, meat or substance to speak of that the fall might’ve bruised or broken.

               “SAIL!!”

               “It is unnecessary to yell. Your frequency can be reached even at—”

               “Yeah, yeah, WHATEVER! We got some ore in this sonuvabitch!” Isobu beams to absolutely no one, immediately grabbing her manipulator and aiming it at the rock. It shatters in a few blasts of the blue beam, the tiny screen soon confirming the presence of at least 7 pieces of copper ore in its storage. “ _Now_ we’re in business!”

\--

               Somewhere else in the universe, business started with a well-functioning and well-stocked medical ship. Umbriel had already unloaded the forsaken medicine cabinets and other machines he’d stolen into the laboratory section (the samples safely inside) and began to set up camp in the crew quarters, now sprawled out on the bottom bunk and flicking through his new ship’s inventory on a small, hovering screen. Besides his damaged broadsword, he had little more than the more dangerous tools of a surgeon in the OR and supply cabinets – and what dangerous chemicals he could concoct into a bomb, trap, or worse – to defend with, should someone want his supplies. He had no problem picking off a few dumbass former USCM bandits to grab their already stolen weaponry for the time being, but the ship needed to be armed. Reinforced. Rewired. Moreover, that meant recruitment: reading people, their intentions, but more importantly, _dealing with them_.

               “Urrrgh.”

               It’s enough to coax a little, feedback-filled, unearthly Novakid growl from him, causing the glaring blue layout on the screen hovering over him to shiver and glitch momentarily. His personal S.A.I.L., having been force-uploaded before their departure and tailored to the medical ship’s systems, blinks to life in the corner of his screen, as if summoned by the irritation of its own circuits.

               “I have finished tallying the damages of our hasty launch and the exit from Earth’s corrupted atmosphere. Would you like your report now?”

               “Yeah, yeah.” Not even a moment after Umbriel flickers in irritation, a tiny prompt pops up next to S.A.I.L.’s icon:

               >SHIP THRUSTERS: Online.

               >LIFE SUPPORT: Online.

               >BACKUP GENERATORS: Ready.

               >FTL DRIVE: Online.

               >SHIP TELEPORTATION SYSTEM: Functional.

               Umbriel blinks a slow, dim blink, before forming something of a furrowed brow on his face. “…So, where’s the damage?”

               “To the outer paneling.”

               “That’s it?”

               “Yes. It is superficial damage.”

               “ _Crimany_ , SAIL, you got me thinkin’ we’re buzzard food with all that hasty launch and corrupted atmosphere shit. I know a ship ain’t gonna sail straight out the wazoo of Tentacle McFuck so smooth, that’s why I’ve been blinkin’ and frizzin’ up a storm in here. Could’a told me it ain’t as bad as I think sooner.”

               “Apologies, Captain. I am programmed to sense your plasma’s emotional disturbances, but even I cannot pinpoint the cause.”

               “…Yeah, you right.” Sheepishly, Umbriel rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

               “There’s no need to apologize. I do not feel criticism at a personal level, Captain.”

               The second ‘ _captain’_ sinks into the pits of his plasma like a lump as he comes to an unsteady standing position, cold and hard beyond the calculations of Kelvin and Mohs alike. He never was supposed to be captain. He wasn’t supposed to be the _hero_. He wouldn’t be. That was the jobs of people with untainted good in them – the jobs of people like Isobu. Who was he to pilot this ship anyways? Command a crew, with their lives in his hands? He stole this damn thing. This quest for answers was damned from the start. Umbriel languishes against the frame of the crew’s quarters, staring at the screen hovering over his right hand.

               “…Just call me Umbriel, for now, if you gotta. I—uh. I’m not used to that.”

               “Understood. Can I assist with anything else?”

               “Yeah. Where’s the pharmaceutical supplies located?” He begins to rub his aching digits and wrists as he strolls the halls, before stopping dead in his tracks. “—wait. Wait. Shit. No. Goddammit.”

               “Umbriel?”

               “My fuckin’ medication. My—It’s my hydrotrexate. For my hypermetallic arthritis.” Umbriel releases his woefully affected limb and holds both arms out, palms up, questioning the cold panels of the ship before dropping back to his sides. “They pro’lly had a stock on my ship, but this is not my ship. Hypermetallic arthritis ain’t common enough to stock on a standard-issue medical ship. I got lotsa iron in my fingers and no hydrotrexate in sight. Therein lies my fuckin’ rub, SAIL.”

               “Understood.” A soft whirr, click, and a few beeps follow suit before the screen lights up, prompting him to lift it closer to his face while he walks. “I have found a medical station orbiting this star. Although it is not equipped for combat, there is a mech in the bay of this ship, as well as standard breathing EPPs in the crew lockers. If you are planning to head there, do suit up appropriately before heading out.”

               “Couldn’ta given me the max upgrade, could’ja…” Umbriel mutters, making a mental note to do some exploring for ore and supplies to enhance the EPP – likely mass produced for the quantity of medics that was supposed to board instead. “Roger that, SAIL. Guess ‘m makin’ a pit stop for my meds first.” By this point, his fussing and pacing has brought him to the front of the ship, ducking through the doorframe that leads to the cockpit carefully as the airlock hisses to a shut behind him. Umbriel seats himself and rolls his shoulders, lolling his head slowly to either side and sending a crackle of iron and heavy minerals dissipating into the main plasma channels within his neck. He’d like to pretend he wasn’t still apprehensive about piloting an entire Condor-class dreadnought by himself, but even with his cockpit resembling the clinics he was so comfortable in – softly lit, with pristine white paneling and an ergonomic captain’s chair – he was. It hadn’t gone smoothly when he’d left the maw of that thing that was once Earth, and this was the first time he’d actually _flown_ somewhere since then. Whatever. At least it wasn’t something that required the full use of his FTL drive. His brand might split.

               “Ah, right—SAIL? You got somethin’ to print out a new medical license? I still got my Protectorate I.D., but…” Gingerly, he removes a charred, goo-crusted license from the pocket of the discarded Protectorate chest piece on the floor that he’d shed shortly before passing out on the floor.

               “Understood. Please wait momentarily while I access your file…”

               Another click and some extensive whirring, and the new license spits out of a small slot next to a backlit keypad – bearing Umbriel’s freckled, featureless face printed upon it, donned in scrubs. Plucking it out to examine it, a semblance of a furrowed brow forms in his plasma as he selects the medical station on the navigation’s touch screen with his other hand. Several, informative pop ups alight in front of him, mostly naming off the station manager, coordinates and other small tidbits useful to passing travelers.

               “Well…they’ll know what doc they’re messin’ with, at least.”

\--

               A short while later, and Umbriel is climbing out of his clearly-marked Protectorate Medical Squadron #435 Mech into the docking bay of the medical station orbiting Phi Prime, much to the horror of onlooking freight workers. A Glitch nearby nearly drops his crate of compressed med packs, but regains composure to confront the anomaly of a living Protectorate Medic head on.

               “Aghast. You…are with the Protectorate?”

               “Somethin’ like that. What’s yer name?”

               “Tentative. Cogquill, sir. What happened—how did you…?”

               “Well, Cogquill, I am Doctor Umbriel Benzen, and I took the ship of my horribly slain comrades an’ got the fuck outta dodge before Earth exploded and took me with ‘em. That answer your question?”

               “Horrified. Yes…I suppose it does.”

               “Glad I could help.”

               Without even so much as a smile, Umbriel strides past the gawking group of workers, the click of his heels against the reinforced steel hollow and cold as the airlock shuts behind him, leaving them to ponder the many questions that were born of his callous answer. What he enters into is a soothingly familiar, but still mystifying environment: sterile white space station paneling, lacquered with a few universally recognized red crosses here and there, with similarly garbed workers moving in a calculated flurry up and down elevators, pure, snowy labcoats billowing past him as a gaggle of chemists unthinkingly parted around the glowing obstacle in their paths – they didn’t even pause their conversation. The only notable hesitation in such a well-oiled machine was the civilians, a scant few of whom appeared to be patients or participants in clinical studies. It was a welcome sight after so much chaos back on the long-gone Earth.

               “Excuse me—can I help you?”

               An Avian receptionist calls to him from the desk by the main airlock and interrupts his survey, the snowy crest of “eyebrows” above her eyes raised slightly. Umbriel does not hesitate in approaching her, offering a surprisingly warm glow and semblance of a smile as he does.

               “S’pose you can. I’m Doctor Umbriel Benzen – from, well, _was_ from the Protectorate. Was s’posed to be on Squ...” No sooner does he mention the doomed organization on his offered license does she snatch it from his hands, horror evident in the raised ruffle of feathers across her extremities as she spots the glittering gold symbol in the corner of it.

               “You—you’re really…Hang on.” The receptionist, whose nametag reads Xocotli, abruptly turns to the keyboard of one of the computers at the desk, frantically punching in the I.D. number and his name into – what he presumes – is the record of known Protectorate medics. The system appears to confirm it, along with his available records. Xocotli blinks incredulously, the eyebrow-like crest of feathers once again raising in disbelief. “I don’t believe it…someone truly made it out of there alive. And…to think it was the highest-ranked in the graduating class of medics…I suppose that makes sense.”

               “Ya flatter me, Xocotli. ‘m just here to obtain some hydrotrexate.”

               “Oh? I’m sure we can manage that. Give me just a second.” She nods, and begins typing away again, considerably calmer. “For a patient, or?”

               “Ah—no, actually, myself. Left my meds in my dorm the mornin’ things went to shit on Earth, since…you know…wasn’t expectin’ it. Ain’t any on my ship either, since it wasn’t…uh, it was the first ship I got to, y’know?” Umbriel gestures vaguely. It was always a tad awkward, talking about the Protectorate’s under-preparedness for one of the seven great races. “Wasn’t equipped for somethin’ hyper-specific, rare Novakid disease like hypermetallic arthritis.”

               Xocotli nods slowly in sympathy without turning from the screen. “I understand. You should be able to pick some up in sector 2B.” The printer next to her groans, then spits out a paper document for him to show the appropriate personnel. “Here.”

               “Well, thank ya kindly for all yer help, Xocotli.” With a genuine flicker, Umbriel tips the flower-adorned cowboy hat on his head, to which she responds with a giggle.

               “Of course! Good luck.”

\--

               It would be just Umbriel’s luck that, upon approaching sector 2B, he would take his eyes off the scores of professionals that passed him for only a moment to finally clip his I.D. to his lab coat. And in that moment where he dares not look at every dumbass action someone might take, a sage-and-silver, awkward bag of gas he could immediately identify as a Novakid _would_ have to slam right into him, sending her clipboard and file of papers flying everywhere. It would also be music to his plasma when she squeaks at such a frequency and volume that he almost feels the very iron of his brand come unglued, bursting the phones of a few now disgruntled pharmacists. Everything _would_ go just peachy like this.

               “Oh my stars—oh my _stars_ , I am _so_ sorry! I did not look where I was goin’, like at all, an’ now you’re all— _is that a paper cut?!_ Ohhh, dagnabbit, Vinyl–!”

               The paper cut she referred to was a vent not more than an inch in length, sealing up quickly along the lavender-hewn limb of the mysterious man she’d bumped into. The aforementioned Vinyl looks up—only to find she has to look even further, for once in her life. A tall, _tall,_ scowling Novakid, clad in all black save for his lab coat, the majestic corona he’d tied into a ponytail seething and flickering like an angry snake draped across his lean shoulders. He nearly dwarfed the ceiling itself, and _boy_ , did he look like he had a few choice words.

               “Cut that fuckin’ whinin’ out, you ol’ puke-lookin’ bag o’ hot farts. What’s yer job title ‘round this joint— _village idiot?_ Really gotta run into the tallest pole in the desert? Man, oh, man, I bet you couldn’t hit the ground with yer hat in three throws.”

               The other workers can only watch on in horror as Umbriel tears her a new one, some obviously holding back laughter. Vinyl, meanwhile, nods half-heartedly, flickering a sheepish smile up at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Co-workers don’t call me Vine for nothin’. Always trippin’ someone up.” Her sight lands on the glittering symbol of the Protectorate, to which her already off-white glow pales. “Ah—you’re…a Protector?”

               “Wh—Sorta. Who’s askin’?” Umbriel’s bristling begins to die down as he replies, nonplussed at the complete acceptance of his abuse.

               “Vinyl Idene. Chief of Pharmaceuticals. We—uh, I obviously report to the station manager, and several other folks, but I’m usually in charge of the actual…mixin’ potions and lotions and stuff. The man behind the curtain.” She straightens up, pulsing with a weak pride. Umbriel takes a moment to note her rather tepid accent, suggesting plenty of time away from frontier folks, as well as the gaunt figure she bore and slouched posture. If he had to guess, he’d guess she was a bit of a workaholic.

               “…Umbriel Benzen, would-be Chief of Medicine. Pleasure bumpin’ into you.” For such a hot creature, his tone drips with icy sarcasm. It makes the very surface of Vinyl’s shell shiver as she stoops to gather her scattered papers.

               “Ch-Chief of Medicine, huh? What’cha doin’ ‘round here, then?”

               “Need’a procure some hydrotrexate. I have—"

               “—hypermetallic arthritis, iron-heavy?” Vinyl finishes, head snapping up. Her flame-like corona sputters, like a birthday candle not quite blown out on the first try. “Oh, jeez…Uh, yeah, I can—we can certainly grab you some, lemme—” She stumbles to a standing position, taking the paper offered stiffly to her now, and starts towards the door directly to the left of them, next to a small window labeled PHARMACY. As the door whispers open, she turns once to him. “Just wait—wait right there, ‘kay? And don’t look too hard a—uh, just. Never mind. Just wait.”

               As the door swallows any vision of her, a refraction arcs across Umbriel’s face, resembling a raised brow. Then it drops. He caught a glimpse of a Novakid on those sheets; a medical diagram, in fact. There were no _real_ organs or anything else of note in a Novakid to chart out, so the only time they were used was to chart gas, core and brand composition, as well as plasma channel flow. If she was a chemist, developing new medicines…Umbriel can hardly stoop casually enough to gather the papers, thankful he had no eyes to notice the eager gaze of. It’s all he can do to still his own excited gases as he gathers them up one by one, half-pretending that he was only ensuring they were matched up by page number. If he were to be chastised by Vinyl, he could hurry it along just fine – his infamous memory could do the rest.

               “Doctor Benzen!”

               Ah, speak of the devil. He’d organized everything by then, tapping the papers a few times on the floor before sliding them back into the folder. With a remarkably believable half-smile, Umbriel holds the folder out to Vinyl, who now had a little paper sack containing two rather large pill bottles.

               “I, uh, told ‘em to give you a pretty good supply. Although I’m sure you’ve bookmarked our coordinates…” She inadvertently spares him a ramble by noticing the folder. “Oh—wow, oh, wow, you organized ‘em that fast? Thanks!”

               “Not a problem at all.” He takes the sack gratefully, then jerks his head in the direction of the vending machines. “Wanna take a walk with me? Can’t take these suckers when I ain’t ate in a while. I’ll buy you an Oculemonade.”

               “Oh, why of course—!”

\--

               A short walk and a few button presses later, they’re alone with only the ungainly clunks and whirrs of bars and cans falling to the bottom of the machine Umbriel now leaned against, with Vinyl seated on a nearby bench.

               “You…uh, you don’t gotta spend your pixels on me. After I slammed into ya like that.”

               “Nah, I felt like it. Besides…” He watches as she eagerly accepts the Oculemonade, glinting eerily. “…Your research on shard concentration was particularly enlightenin’.”

               Vinyl freezes, the temperature around her dropping noticeably in shame. She is barely able to squeak a response through all the feedback from her X-shaped brand. “…You saw?”

               “’Course I did.” Umbriel sinks down next to Vinyl, a freckled cheek leaning against his steepled fingers. “You got a reason for it, too. A personal one.”

               “Well—yeah. How’d you know?”

               “Iron ain’t uncommon in Novakid, but there’s several types of hypermetallic arthritis, based on composition. And you know how we glowin’ folk vary with that.” A thoughtful hum follows, his head tilting in suit. “As an ordinary chemist, you’d pro’lly be able to at least guess I’m mostly hydrogen by my main color. That bein’ said, hypermetallic arthritis is pretty evenly split ‘cross the board when it comes to what metal deposits most ‘cause of our wildly varyin’ compositions. No regular chemist’d be able to guess me without stickin’ me first.” He finally sits up straight. “I can’t quite tell how, but I’m guessin’ that bump helped you figure it out a lil’.”

               Vinyl’s lanky shoulders fall. “Yeah…I got a lil’ quirk, I guess you could say. Works a lil’ like a mass spectrometer…definitely works better with Novakid. Helps when yer particles are already ionized. Then I read and sort ‘em out a lil’ faster.” She turns to him, a pale crease of concern above her brand. “I…I wanted to know more ‘bout where folks like me come from. Did some tests. Also, some diggin’, mostly in Hylotl libraries. But then I started stumblin’ on…”

               “…mentions of Ancients.” He gleams a weak powder pink.

               “…Yeah. I…I still don’t got much on it, despite all those papers.”

               “Well, lucky for you, I’m tryin’ to find out more myself.” When Vinyl looks up in confusion, Umbriel elaborates. “I got a quirk myself. Hyperthymesia, Novakid-variant. Ridiculous memory recall and information absorption, but also comorbid with a variety of conditions includin’ hypermetallic arthritis. ‘S why I’m proficient in multiple fields…and not much of a people person.”

               “…Eh?! So you’re…?!”

               “Yeah. One of them Concentrates you hypothesized.”

               “You…wow. This is. _Wow._ I can’t believe it.”

               “You best start now,” he chuckles, extending a hand to her. “‘Sides, I want you to join me. As the first member of my crew, and my head chemist.”

               She gawks at the hand, opening a bright, gloopy mouth in awe. “M…ME?! Head chemist…crew…?! Ship?! You, captain?!”

               While it didn’t feel too much better than hearing S.A.I.L. say it in an empty ship, it was technically correct. He’d _actually_ be captain. Umbriel shrugs a shoulder, a lopsided grin flickering across his face. “Yeah, if yer interested.”

               “’Course I am! Oh man—oh man, now I gotta tell station manager and—oh stars, oh jeez. Flyin’ through space…wow. Damn.” Vinyl freezes, nonplussed, still gaping at Umbriel. “Should I…should I yeehaw to this? I dunno, I ain’t so good at pickin’ when to hoot ‘n holler like most Novakid, I’m kinda…a city slicker—”

               “Aw, jus’ do it, Vine,” he interrupts, waving a hand in dismissal. “We got work to do.”

               “Roger that, cap’n—YEEEEEEEEEEEHAW!”

\--

               By now, Isobu’s made something of herself. With the help of the matter manipulator, she’s cleared out a patch of land, felled and sewn countless trees to add to her repertoire of timber and create some stations to craft at – placed in a safe, torchlit tunnel beneath her little house, closing the monsters out with a crude wooden hatch. On the clear patch of land, she did some tilling and watering with the seeds she’d gathered from a few expeditions – sooner than later, she’d have something more than just canned rations and slabs of meat she’d stocked in the ship’s (miraculously functioning) mini fridge from felling monsters. A few nights had passed, tunnels into the earth had been plowed, and weapons forged and found. If she’d been so inclined, this might be where the journey ceased. This could be her home, and she could forget the search for answers altogether.

               Fortunately, Isobu would rather die.

               “Might I remind you, you’ve long since gathered enough core fragments for that gate. After you finish eating, I recommend heading back to it.”

               “ _Bwuh_ —” a spluttering of alien steak chunks flies out of Isobu’s mouth, half-singed and stringy, and land on the soft grass with a heat-filled hiss. “Y’sure know how to nag and not much else, huh?” she quips, gaze glued to the forsaken remnants of her dinner. As she swallows the rest of the steak down, she recalls her journey through the planet’s layers was interrupted by the detection of a mysterious energy source. Upon tunneling up to it, she’d climbed out to discover a massive, ancient gate that appeared to possess some rudimentary teleporter. It was the discovery of an awful, tingling dread – palpable, repelling her backwards – with the gate that made Isobu so reluctant to return and power the gate’s teleporter. S.A.I.L. had prompted her to return to her tunneling to find “core fragments,” which she’d been quite successful at (even keeping a large stash for making explosives later.) However, if that dread returned…who was to say what would happen to her when she added planetary power to the equation?

               “…Alright, set my compass then. We ain’t got a choice.”

\--

               She should have known the walk would not have been long enough to prepare her. She’d charted the entire planet by now, explored deep pits and fleshy alien caves, old stone tombs long undisturbed. But only the dead could hope to escape this unfathomable plague that was about to hit her in her core. Upon reaching the edges of the gate, Isobu considers the details of the ancient bricks leading up to it, as though to distract herself from the creeping feeling in her core. It was indescribable: not quite a stomachache (to say nothing of the lack of a stomach,) but nowhere near comfortable. It was just…something, burning in her, but not hurting her. A candle, perhaps, set alight after many years snuffed. Whatever it was, it was not of any world she knew.

               “…Sail? Yer gonna haf’ta help me with this…”

               Isobu can barely muster a mumble as she makes the agonizing, three-step trek up to the gate, a feeble hand of seafoam pressed to the gentle yellow glow of the pillar lighting the path. The light soothed her, somehow. The same way drinking from a spring might for a fleshy being: it felt nourishing, even if it was something she had to write off as a placebo effect. It takes all her willpower to tear herself away and stumble up to the old stone platform, where a sturdy, brick console stands proud against the sands of time.

               “Sail—”

               “Aim your manipulator and place the fragments on top of the interface, captain.”

               Isobu is dumbfounded through her weakness. “…Just…slap ‘em on top like a bag a’ mooshi dung? That seems a lil’ heretical.” Nonetheless, she obliges, firing up the manipulator and taking aim above the screen of the console. Not a moment later, a glowering bundle of core fragments lands on the screen with a loud clatter. A few tinkle to the ground, landing at the base of the console and Isobu’s feet unceremoniously.

               “…That’s it? That’s some bullsh—”

               Before Isobu can finish her curse, teal light envelopes them, before they dissolve in an alien hum. A moment later, the console flickers to life – and casts with it a giant, purple, flailing portal, showing a brief glimpse of some ancient structure. She barely has time to admire it before S.A.I.L. pipes up once more.

               “I am intercepting a message of unknown origins. It appears to be specifically for you. I will patch it through now.”

               Static crackles in Isobu’s plasma as the interference fades out to reveal a pleasant, elderly voice – one that sounds distinctly Human.

               “I hope this message meets its proper recipient…If it really is you that’s powered this gate, please meet me at the Ark, just past the Outpost. I have a request that the fate of the universe depends on – and I have to know if you’re someone who can possibly fit this task better than others.”

               With that, the pleasant voice fades, leaving Isobu to flicker quietly atop the teleporter in awe. For having so much to say, she does not utter a word. Raising a right hand slowly, she merely flicks it in a gesture S.A.I.L.’s scanners would pick up as “ _see ya_ ,” before placing the other hand onto the teleporter’s screen and disappearing in a flash of light.

               Upon landing, Isobu immediately grips the sides of the teleporter base with a soft grunt; the combination of her strange feeling and being ripped up and thrown in a cloud of particles across space and time into an unknown area was…formidable, to say the least. Luckily, there is no one around the gate to immediately gawk at her. Thus, she straightens up – slowly, careful not to aggravate her woozy plasma – and surveys the area around her. She can see she’s landed on some asteroid, orbiting a lush-class moon and its purple gas giant. Stepping down off the gateway’s platform, she is immediately greeted by the nostalgic, gaudy glow of a convenience store: Infinity Express, the neon sign reads. Near the academy, she recalled a similar sort of store she and Umbriel would sometimes grab midnight snacks at when campus food proved too much of a strain on a student wallet. A shudder wracks her barely solid frame; had she not stifled it as a reflex, she might have burst into tears. How badly she wanted, just one last time, to be there, watching Umbriel dangle his freakishly long limbs from over the edge of a shopping cart basket as she pushed, listening to him complain about exams and his persistent brand-ache over the obnoxious slurp of his slushie. How she longed to even express such a woe.

               As if sensing her turmoil, a tan-and-white mutt of a dog trots up to her, tail wagging hard enough to take a door off its hinges. It bore a red collar with a gold tag: Pinfriend, it read.

               “Ohhhhh…!” Isobu gasps, buoyant, gaseous voice raising about three pitches, almost indecipherable in her excitement. “ _Puppy…!!_ ” Pinfriend is just as excited as she is; immediately, the mutt places its paws on her rugged jeans, about ready to wag itself into a new dimension as she promptly covers it in kisses and pets. For just a moment, Isobu has achieved some kind of peace, her head pressed against the dog’s – until that peace is broken by her first self-aware contact.

               “Hey! You like dogs?”

               Peering up from Pinfriend’s fur, Isobu spots a Human girl jogging half-heartedly toward her. She is clad in blue armor to match the blue makeup that glinted against her dark skin, and her bright teal hair bounces wildly in the pair of pigtails she’d tied it into as she waves with her entire body. _Leave it to a Human to start a conversation with dogs,_ Isobu thinks.

               “Uh, yeah! Why?” She inquires. The Human girl has now stopped to catch her breath just a few steps away, hands on her knees as she cranes her head up at Isobu.

               “ _Whew, lotta armor_ —Does that mean you’re from Earth?” Her question sends a shiver across Isobu’s shell.

               “…Yeah. Just barely made it outta there.”

               “Ohmigosh, me too!” The girl gasps at the discovery of a survivor, bouncing on her heels as she considers the possibility of more. “I’m so glad to hear more folks made it out…I’m Lisa, by the way!” Lisa excitedly offers her hand to Isobu, who – already accustomed to the human tradition – grips her hand and gives a firm shake.

               “Nice t’meet’cha, Lisa! I’m Isobu. I was from the Protectorate.” Dazed from the strength of her handshake, it takes Lisa a moment before she can process the gravity of Isobu’s statement.

               “Wow, strong grip—wait, Protectorate? You…” Lisa almost appears ashen in dread. Isobu can only cross her arms and look away; first to the side, then at her feet as she begins to rock on them while she speaks.

               “Yep. Was the top of my class as a Soldier. Escaped in a cruiser that was s’posed to house my squad. She’s all boogered up now. I’ll find someone to fix’er after I find this here Ark that’s s’posed to be past this joint.”

               Lisa straightens up, incredulous. “The…Ark? That old weird dusty pit past the edge of the outpost should have it. Never been down there myself, but I wonder about the glow, sometimes…”

               Isobu nods. “Well, dusty pit it is, then. Thank ya kindly, Lisa. You keep that pretty head a’ yours safe, now.” A crooked smile follows her statement. Suddenly bashful, Lisa giggles and flaps her hand vaguely at Isobu.

               “And _you_ stay safe out there too, soldier.”

\--

               Lisa’s warning would come in handy, as it seems.

               Not right away, of course. Walking into the main outpost building led Isobu to an array of colorful shops and people, some discussing the recent fate of Earth and how to stop it. Others still were only there for the services. There were dozens upon dozens of people, as well as many stalls and strange vendors that she took a careful survey of, including one Apex tech engineer who seemed to have little interest in her at the moment. As a matter of fact, most folks either ignored her or stared; in spite of the myriad of races, there were no other Novakid, and the scar creeping out from her bandages seemed to make her stick out like a sore thumb even more.

               “’Scuse me, ma’am—this a public teleporter? Can I bookmark it?” Isobu stands with one hand on a sleek teleporter beside One-Stop Teleshop, the last of the shops in the main building. As a gaudily armored Hylotl burst into form on the teleporter base, the Human girl sitting at the stand only gives Isobu a condescending glare and an eyebrow raise. Isobu’s corona flickers in irritation.

               “Sheesh. Alright, I get it.”

               Outside she finds some solace in the wild array of machinery before her, dotted with penguins and fronted by a shady looking Human man with an eyepatch and a hook-leg prosthetic. He gives her a knowing nod, presumably due to the bandage in place of an eyepatch, as she passes by, to which she can only respond with a half-smile and a weak salute. Perhaps it is the proximity to the Ark the mysterious woman spoke of, but she was beginning to feel a little weird again…perhaps it was just nerves.

               Stepping off the last stair leading up to the giant platform, Isobu is suddenly aware of a deeply familiar, but still foreign glow along the main bricks. Upon further investigation, they appear to be ancient versions of strip lights, all of them lit a bright neon blue. She is awed as she walks, her usual sturdy gait dissolving into a childlike, dazzled wander – to the point where she nearly slips and misses the top step of another deep staircase.

               “Must’a been what Lisa meant by ‘dusty pit,’ huh…”

               Isobu’s mutter echoes softly off the ancient brickwork as she steps carefully down the steep slope and onto a welcome patch of flat floor – and is greeted by the appearance of a bright, teal hologram depicting an ancient figure. Its featureless face provides no clue to her as to why, but as it stands there starkly, raising two planets with its hands, she feels a tiny twinge of something she cannot name. Respect, perhaps.

               Another tiny flight, and this time she stumbles upon a much more awful scene at the foot of some great statue she cannot see the top of. An eye, surrounded by tentacles…some roiling, twisting, horror. A stark wave of nausea jerks her away from it, fingertips pressed to her temples as she stumbles away and up the next flight.

               It all culminates at the top: a bright streak of light, illuminating the edges of a huge gate where six holes set in the shape of a sun marked the middle of it. Despite the receding dizziness, she could make out that the gate was much like the one she’d traveled through. It was…overwhelming, and indescribable; her grip on the universe was lost and this gate gave her no purchase. So ethereal was the scene that Isobu doesn’t even notice as the sound of whirring, like a hoverchair, begins to approach her right side.

               “Oh, why it is you! Hello, dear.”

               Isobu whirls around on her heel, hand reflexively jerking up to the hilt of the broadsword sheathed upon her back – until she recognizes the voice. The source of the messages appeared to be an elderly Human woman, as she suspected: her kind face filled with wrinkles and round glasses pushing up upon her pale, chubby cheeks as she smiled. The woman sat upon a hoverchair stocked well with supplies and fitted with the latest add-ons. In the pocket to her left sat a foldable cane, indicating the chair was used for mobility. The woman clasps her hands together as she examines the considerably more disheveled and unprepared Isobu, delighted all the same to see her. Isobu is dumbfounded.

               “But…wuh…what? How do you know…?”

               “Isobu Tert-Butyl, hero to her classmates and top of her Soldier class, no? I’ve been informed on you quite a while now, dear. I’ve been expecting you a long time.”


	3. Little Visions of Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! I'm still alive and kickin', just horribly busy with college! I'm SO sorry this took so long. I lost muse for quite awhile several times, and went through quite a few mental and physical health troubles -- but I'm here, and I've got my muse back! I really missed writing my space kids, ahaha. Next chapter will probably be a bit more Isobu-centric if not completely filled by her shenanigans as she's going on the first of the in-game missions, so stay tuned!!

            “Bigger hero – _what?!_ Ain’t gonna be no heroes ‘round here if you don’t cough up the deets, granny!”

            A hum of fire soothes the hiss of a blade being whirled out from its sheathe, lighting the trail of Isobu’s broadsword with raw flame element as she grips it with both hands in front of her, stance shifting to reposition her center of gravity. With her only home destroyed and everyone she loves dead or missing, Isobu seems to have no reason to humor strangers being cryptic about either of her losses. The woman seems impressed and all the same nonchalant at having her life threatened, her round features alight from the flames in front of her and highlighting her awe at the sheer speed at which the heavy blade was drawn.

            “Marvelous handling, dear! I haven’t seen skill like that since my days overseeing the academy. You really are a Protector.”

            “A P…a Protect…academy…” Isobu stutters for a moment, attempting to place two and two together, before it dawns on her so heavily it nearly extinguishes her vibrant glow. “Oh my stars. Yer a—”

            “Former Grand Protector, Esther Bright,” Esther beams.

            “Oh my shittin’ _stars_. I mean—” As if programmed to, Isobu stands her blade against the ground, one hand on the butt of the hilt, the other snapping off a startlingly formal salute. Her posture is stiff as a board. “Grand Protector, ma’am! I ‘pologize sincerely!”

            Esther cannot help but giggle, wagging a hand at her in embarrassment and using the other to cover her grin. It had been quite some time since she’d seen such formality in her presence. “Oh, my, now—there’s no need for that. We are equals in the face of our troubled universe. Call me Esther.”

            “I…uh…sorry, I jus’—force a’ habit, y’know?” Isobu softens sheepishly, hauling the sword up and sheathing it with a quiet _shunk_. She’d found it in her planetary escapades, tucked away in a long-forgotten box somewhere in an underground cave. It was a Xia-Li Skybiter—and in perfect condition, to boot. Much as she’d like to use it, the broken Protectorate broadsword would have to rest for now until she could find someone to mend it properly. Isobu shifts awkwardly, feeling the tension sink into her shell at the mention of the trouble that’d taken their planet – and would likely plague much more.

            “So…what’d you mean with that…message?” Her words are hesitant but start to rapidly gain pace. “Why…me, a hero? What do I got to do with all this? Do you know—do you know why I was there—why I survived? Esther…what’s goin’ on?”

            Esther holds up a hand, the other outstretched with a neatly wrapped little candy. It was brown-and-tan striped, and rather glossy. “Patience, my dear. This will be quite a bit to take in – here, have a mint humbug.” Ever the glutton, Isobu plucks it from her hand with a delighted electric trill, already about to throw it into her gaping mouth without a second’s notice – but Esther interrupts.

            “Ah – try savoring it, dear.”

            “…Do I gotta?”

            “Well, no. But maybe the act of unwrapping the candy, placing it in your mouth, and then – instead of biting down – savoring it would give you more time to settle yourself.” Isobu looks weary, to which Esther only smiles kindly, and makes an important addition. “Burning plastic also tastes awful.”

            “…Good point,” Isobu mutters over the crinkle of plastic, gingerly working out the twists of the wrapping’s ends between her forefingers and thumbs. Careful to keep it atop said wrapper, she lifts it to her mouth and plops it in, closing the brilliant trench opened in her shell very slowly so as not to invoke the heat of a Novakid’s bite. “Thanks, Esther. Guess ‘m just…worked up still.” A squeaky hiss cuts through the air as Isobu sighs, fidgeting with the wrapper. “Think ‘m better though. I mean—better as I can be.”

            “Good, good. Now, my request for you goes way back before your time…it is a trouble I had to leave my position for, as my research could not be neglected.” Esther clasps her hands together, and inhales.

            “Long ago, there was a force known as the Cultivator. It maintained balance in the universe – under its dignified, whole form, planets rose and fell naturally, and harmony reigned. So it was for aeons.” Her soft features suddenly turn to stone.

            “…But then, for reasons many debate, the Ruin rose: a being that could not abide life in any form, one of hate and destruction. My research, personally, has pointed to a split in the Cultivator’s form: the part of its force that culled and brought death to sate the balance of the universe broke free in a catastrophic burst of stress, and became the Ruin. This new form reaped destruction across the universe.”

            As Esther spoke, the holograms dimmed and brightened, according to her speech. Upon the tentacled beast’s brightening, Isobu’s scar suddenly throbbed. She could not bear for Esther to be interrupted, however, and merely turns her head to the side, her still-healing brand hissing weakly in protest.

            “It fought to blot out all life, and would have succeeded, but for the sacrifice of the Cultivator. Knowing full well it stood against a rogue part of itself, the Cultivator succeeded in sealing the Ruin away. But in doing so, the Cultivator exhausted its power completely. Before its last energies dissipated, it gifted six chosen races with precious artifacts.”

            Esther turns to the gate, gesturing up at the holes dotted in it. “These six artifacts, when united, form the key that opens the gate to the Ruin.”

            Puzzled, Isobu could not help but interrupt. “Wait—six? What ‘bout us glowin’ folk? I mean, I see our faces on this gate!” She gestures wildly to the gate, as if unable to encompass its sheer size. “I mean, look, right there! That fella’s even got my brand—see, are you lookin’, Esther?” She draws closer, hand outstretched to the worn Novakid face upon the gate. “Right— _there!_ ”

            Upon touching down on the omega-shaped brand that mirrored hers, light flickers to life in it – and then begins to spread, riding the edges of the gate in a fleeting, blinding flood of bright teal light. Faint, nebulous visions of falling and scattering flicker across her mind, sending tingly-feeling sparks dancing across her brand. Startled, Isobu yanks her hand away and squeals as though she’d been burned, before immediately taking a defensive pose – as if she’d deign to fight this sudden stressor in hand-to-hand combat. Esther takes this entire turn of events in stride, hands neatly folded upon her crossed legs, and smiles.

            “We don’t have all the answers yet, sadly. I’m sure you know Novakid are not one to sit down and chart their history,” she begins, floating closer to Isobu as she speaks. “But…we know there’s much more to you and your people – that instead of bestowing an artifact, you might be something of an artifact yourselves. The Cultivator might have already known they’d only be able to succeed at locking away the Ruin before they perished, but I’ve began to think…when we face death, we tap into something in ourselves we had no idea of. We might use the last of our strength to create a better life for others. What if that’s why Novakid are here?”

            Esther leaves no time to answer the rhetorical question, her features grave in Isobu’s seafoam glow as she floats close enough to press a hand to her chest, right about where a heart should be. “In an inadvertent way, I think you’re a product of that line of thinking as well. I believe Leda thought that as well, when she found you after the sheriff’s supernova. That’s why she took you under her wing.”

            Isobu stiffens at the invocation of her fallen mentor and yanks herself backwards. “Yeah—well, what’s my past croakin’ and then turnin’ into an overcooked amnesiac runt got to do with the Ruin and the Cultivator?”

            Esther respectfully places the hand back onto her lap. “It’s just a gut feeling, influenced partially by research, but…I think as it stands, your chances of destroying the Ruin are better than anyone else’s after Earth’s destruction. Surely, any other Novakid could unlock the gate, however, _you_ …destruction could not destroy you, death only gave you a new life; what chance does the Ruin have when _you_ greet it?”

            Isobu begins to piece Esther’s idea together, albeit slowly. “So…you think there was a reason I turned into me, and that reason…will help me…kill the Ruin?” She flickers inquisitively, placing her hands on her hips and jutting her neck out at the gate, as if to squint at the runes. “…And uh, we’ll find that reason as we find the artifacts?”

            With a nod, Esther confirms her suspicions. “That’s right, dear. If that brush with the gate was any indication, you’re bound to find some answers in those artifacts as well. We will learn as we gather, and ideally, it will offer us insight on the Novakid as a whole before we have to defeat the Ruin.” As she speaks, Isobu is bouncing around the gate: peering behind, below, and over it as she springs from tile to ancient tile like embers in a fireplace. When it seems Esther has stopped speaking, she blinks and glimmers her way back, a giddy firefly in the body of a living weapon as she trills in approval.

            “Got it! Man, I ain’t know treasure huntin’ was so badass!”

            Esther is endlessly amused. “My, you’re a bouncy one. I suggest we get your ship in working order first, however.”

            Isobu recalls the chunk of lifeless metal she woke up to, cringing. “Ah…right. Ol’ faithful. Could use a new paint job.”

            “Right. Which is why your best bet is Penguin Pete, just outside the main outpost building. How’s your FTL drive?”

            “Dead on arrival.” Isobu nonchalantly inspects her colorfully banded fingertips. “’S fine. Just need a new rock, right? Sure Petey’s got ‘em.”

            Esther’s lips purse. “That…might be a bit of a pickle. He can explain it a little better, if you’d like to—”

            Before Esther can finish her sentence, Isobu is off like a government-enhanced shot to find Pete, with nothing more than a wave and a muffled _“got it!”_ Her gait is that of a soldier: powerful, precise, and almost freshly starched, but there’s a childish swing in her step, the massive broadsword on her broad back glinting erratically in the Ark’s light with every footfall. She was everything Esther had hoped for while monitoring the Return to Grace Project – that’s what the Protectorate been tentatively calling it, at the time – but something felt…hollow. Incomplete. There was a heavy funk in her chest, a heart murmur every time she thought of the task ahead of this young soldier. A wrinkled hand comes up to pat the red, emblazoned scarf tied around her neck. She’s arrived at her usual conclusion: her solace lay within her research.

\--

            Bouncing to a catchy tune of Earthly origins, Vinyl scouts her new living space carefully, clad in sweats she’d grabbed from her dorm as well as a ribbed, thick turtleneck sweater. Her flame of a corona wafted behind her, smoothed back by a loose fabric headband. It had been about a week since she’d been hired, and she still wasn’t entirely used to the concept – much less her surroundings, as she’d barely left her room until now. As Umbriel had briefed her before beaming in, the ship was huge, but not overly so: a state-of-the-art Protectorate Mobile Medical Station, balanced perfectly with mobility and medical usability. It certainly was not meant for long-term medical stays. Rather, it appeared to be part emergency-room, part general clinic, and part research station. This was, in part, to keep them moving, but also keep them productive. She noted two separate, spacious crew sleeping quarters…and how, of all the rows of cozy bunks, only two beds would be filled.

            Of course, some of this was gleaned with her special Concentrate touch. It took much longer in the ship versus simply being able to brush against a Novakid. However, she’d always felt if she trained and tailored it enough, the touch could reveal much more than the mere chemical contents of objects. The heavy metal hull panels creaked under her insistent touch, with only her lighting the halls in a flurry of silvery-green as she danced through them. The creaks began to mingle with a certain savory, iron hum, one she’d so recently become acquainted with. Her fingers scrabbled along the hull panels, tracing over bleach-clean ridges and dips in the hospital ship’s halls as she chased the hum with her fingertips. It began to sway, then dipped to the other side of the room in a single fluid motion, as though the origin rolled across the room in a wheeled office chair. Only one source on this ship could be so iron-filled and ionized at the same time: the same source that she now called Captain.

            “…riel?”

            Only the latter half of his name leaves her brand. Vinyl’s glow recedes from the walls in sheepishness, but she feels the hum stop cold. It begins to gurgle beneath her fingertips, like the bristling growl of a startled cat. She tries again, despite her anxiety.

            “Captain…Umbriel?”

            The growl smooths out in an instant. She hears a deep, winded response.

            “…Yeah?”

            “Oh…I just wanted to—”

            Vinyl is so relieved, she almost throws herself down the hallway, back oddly erect and balanced on her tip toes like a frenzied cat, not even giving herself time to finish.

            “—Hi.”

            Looking back at her was Umbriel, sample in hand, Novakid-tailored lab goggles on, and a navy-blue Protectorate Medical Outreach sweatshirt beneath his lab coat. His corona was furiously bundled into a large, hopelessly messy bun behind his head, but stray pieces swayed like kelp in an ocean current every time he made the slightest movement. She supposed they couldn’t enforce a uniform code or exact lab safety specifications with only two tired and aimless Novakid as a crew.

            “…Hi. You need somethin’? I’m jus’—well, actually, hang on. You’re ‘xactly what I needed.” Umbriel gives her a sharp grin, one that makes her shiver.

            “M…me?” Vinyl’s voice is thinner than the pluck of a violin’s string.

            “Yeah, you, twinkle-toes. Fingers. Whatever. Machines ain’t givin’ me any leeway on this here sample.” He rolls away to reveal a nebulous crimson blotch on the plate, and she swears she sees a yellow, gazeless eye stare up somewhere from it. Had she had an esophagus, she would’ve gulped. Instead, Vinyl inches closer, hand gingerly hovering in front of her. A dark green streak knits together like worried eyebrows above her brand.

            “Is this…is it from a cephalopod?”

            “Pshh. Fuck if I know what it was.” Umbriel’s head cants backward slightly in dismissal, shoulders shrugging once. “It was from the varmint that killed all my friends.”

            The gravity of his statement, and his complete dismissal of it, socks Vinyl in the gut – swiftly and stiffly. He’s potentially the only survivor of Earth, a hallmark in the universe and birthplace of the Protectorate…and he acts like it’s a sample from a stray dog that chewed his ankle. Still reeling, Vinyl tries to put a thought together. “The… _varmint_ …you took a sample from it?”

            “Yeah? I exited pretty close to a lab, so I stole some shit, grabbed a sample off some poor ol’ fuzzy Apex corpse and hightailed it outta there like my hat was on fire.” He crosses his arms, the stray tendrils of his corona curling in like angry snakes towards his face. “Like I’d let it ruin my life without gettin’ some info and tests out of it.”

            For a moment Vinyl is motionless before nodding stiffly. “Right. Well. Gimme some gloves and I suppose I can take a look…feel.”

            Umbriel rolls to the side, arm lolling out towards her with a box of (ironically) vinyl exam gloves. Without further ado, Vinyl plucks a pair out and slips them on with ease, her smooth shell giving little resistance to the material of her namesake. Umbriel then hands her the specially-shaped goggles he’d worn, as a precaution, which she slips over her head hastily. As her gently quaking fingers pluck up the slide, Vinyl makes a little hiss noise as her shoulders heave once – the settling of her gases, a Novakid “equivalent” to a deep breath in its way of quelling anxiety. With her index finger, she gently presses down on the surface of the red muck.

            Then – almost imperceptibly – her whole body quietly settles. An instant later, she screams.

            It’s a horrible scream that blasts Umbriel’s corona out of its bun in the sheer startle it produces, tendrils flailing everywhere as he almost tips completely over. A scream like someone’s taking a potato peeler to the surface of her brand, shaving off layer upon layer of metal. The force of the shriek blasts the goggles off her head, sending them in a high arc over both of their heads and landing hard on a nearby shelf as though a concussed bird. Vinyl has dropped the sample, causing the glass to shatter everywhere. Her screaming stops as soon as it leaves her grip, but she is left in a staticky, shaking mess, stumbling backwards as she squeaks out terrified brand feedback that Umbriel can barely understand in bits of _terror_ and _worlds crumble_ as he darts towards her.

            “Vinyl—Vinyl. Hey. What hurts? Give me your hands.” Immediately, Umbriel is a medical professional instead of a bored twenty-something, cradling Vinyl’s shaking hands as he swiftly removes the gloves. There is no obvious external bruising or cracking in his once-over, so he guides her to his former chair and has her sit. “Hey, hey. You’re gonna be okay, Vinyl. Ain’t gonna hurt you no more. Okay? You are safe. You’re here, and you’re safe, and I’m here. I’m gonna take care of you. Okay?”

            Vinyl nods frantically, finally blubbering a coherent sentence. “It didn’t hurt…”

            Umbriel’s glow blinks, but his rhythm remains undisturbed, pressing his glove-clad fingertips to her bare ones with utmost precaution. “…Okay. What did you feel? Tingling, burning? Itching?”

            “Cracking.”

            He pauses and looks down at the tip of her finger, puzzled. She continues.

            “Crumbling. Dead people. I felt teeth shattering. Worlds are in danger.”

            Umbriel shakes his head, now pushing her in the chair towards the nearest medically-equipped room available. Incoherent babbling could be symptomatic of any number of things, but first and foremost, he knew she hadn’t taken care of herself at all the last day or so. The prediction about her being a workaholic turned out to be true: when Vinyl was focused, she’d subsist solely off energy drinks, nervous energy, and chewed-up office pens. “You need to whet your flame before ya turn into a puddle a’ taurine and pen caps, Calamity Jane. Energy drinks and traumatic experiences ain’t mix well,” he chides, turning the corner and plucking up a discarded bunk blanket (she’d become fond of bundling herself up in her ship explorations) to tuck her into. “You know—”

            “Wait—no! It’s not shock, no—I know what I saw, Umbri—captain!” Vinyl’s arms suddenly fly outward and knock the loose wrappings off her shoulders, startling Umbriel enough to raise his corona like a cat’s hackles. Undeterred, she continues, whipping around in the chair to face him. “I saw—Earth! I saw…I saw a yellow eye watching it, with a big slit pupil! I saw it look sad, and lonely—I saw the eye split from—something big!”

            Umbriel blinks again, nonplussed. “…I. Hm. Did’ja happen to dent your brand when you freaked out?”

            “I’m serious, Captain! Didn’t you touch it?”

            “ _No?_ ” There is a razor-thin curve of irritation to the word. She swears she sees the same slit pupil in the shape of his brand, judging her. “I don’t got your touch.”

            “Okay, okay, fine. But I think we ought to research whatever this varmint is! You know yourself that us Concentrates only have vague connections to Ancients and whatever. I think we gotta look there. It was big enough to wipe out a whole planet effortlessly, with no retaliation, and—didn’t you feel anything weird when it attacked?”

            Umbriel cants his head towards the ceiling thoughtfully. “…Come to think of it, I ‘member this really…oppressive atmosphere in the lab. Just…somethin’ ‘bout it I couldn’t explain.” He looks back down at her, a violet frown curving across the light of his face. “Even for the situation…it felt so out of place. Like I was experiencing…a thousand tragedies, in my own lil’ world. Now that I’m thinkin’ clearly ‘bout it, I recall a big ol’ ugly eye right outside the lab window, but…”

            “An eye?”

            “Yeah. Didn’t notice it at the time—not sure how I noticed it at all.”

            “Holy crackers, Captain.” Vinyl gapes at him, a perfect “o” of awe forming below her brand, before she begins bouncing in the office chair. “That does it! We gotta do research on this stinkin’ calamari before it gets any worse! We might find some answers!”

            “…No.” Umbriel darkens drastically at the implications, his low voice deepening to an almost infrasound snarl. “I thought it was pretty clear I ain’t a heroic type.”

            “W…okay, well…” Vinyl tries to ignore the rattle in her brand from his growling. “Perhaps we’re not _fighting_ whatever it is.”

            “Then what do you wanna do ‘bout it?”

            “We—ah, we find out what it is! We just…find out what it is and find out what we are while we’re at it! Research! You’re all about learning, ain’tcha?” Vinyl sounds almost despondent, as though she’s also realizing how desperate their search for a purpose is. Umbriel scratches his head thoughtfully, making disquieted static noises.

            “Yeah. Maybe Isobu would be better at the fighting part…” The thought slips out before he can stop himself, the tendrils of his corona curling in sheepishly. Unfortunately, it seems, Vinyl seems keen to pick up on the ends of it, her own corona spurting with curiosity.

            “…Isobu? Whossat?”

            Umbriel hums a crackly little hum, teeming with vibrant magenta malcontent. Guess she’d find out sooner or later. “Sister. Adoptive sis. Two of us were tighter than my back after a night shift. Went to the academy with me, was set to graduate as the cream o’ the crop. The brilliant super soldier. Ain’t nothin’ that could bring that ol’ girl down, not even death itself – she’s a neutron star-stage.” The hum comes back, like a nauseating fluorescent light. He lolls his head to the side thoughtfully, the weight of the guilt unfurling and swaying his coronal tendrils in an invisible wind. In a bittersweet contradiction, Vinyl can see all the pain come forward as his facial features begin to fade out. “I didn’t…see much of her durin’ that graduation. I could swear I felt a ship pass me as I left, n’ I think I heard somethin’ blinkin’ like S.A.I.L. was about to try and alert me, but…” The hum suddenly ceases. “Wishful thinkin’.”

            Vinyl suddenly flares with frustration, cheeks puffing up with roiling gases. “Oh, you don’t know that—SAIL!”

            On cue, the AI flickers to life on the screen on her wrist. “First Mate Vinyl Idene. How can I assist you?

            Vinyl squawks in surprise but presses on with her inquiry. “F…First mate…UH! That ship! What was that ship you picked up as you guys left Earth? What’s it…who was in it?”

            S.A.I.L. whirrs thoughtfully, then answers. “Due to the proximity and speed at which the two ships paralleled each other, I was hoping to alert the Captain of the near miss myself, as it did not set off a TCAS resolution advisory for reasons unknown – likely the heavy damage to the other ship. According to the precious little information picked up, it was a racial-styled cruiser, Novakid specific.”

            After pulling up a generic Novakid cruiser on Vinyl’s screen, S.A.I.L. continues, with several areas of the cruiser flashing red to indicate damage. “The ship’s radio, instruments, and any form of communication were damaged severely, unlike ours. I could only pick up faint signals confirming the race of the cruiser matched its occupant, nothing more.”

            Umbriel is silent momentarily, before producing a few incredulous whines and squeaks of feedback from his brand. Vinyl picks up where he does not, hands placed triumphantly on her hips.

            “See? I’ll bet you even if her ship’s all busted up, she’s gotta be out there! No way even Earth’s atmosphere would have dented her at such a dense stage. And I’ll bet you no matter what, she wants to see her brother again.” Vinyl steps closer, the sudden bursts of confidence starting to dwindle as she begins to slowly wring her hands. “So…Captain… _after_ we clean up and secure the lab…I think you ought to start thinkin’ more positively about this Isobu possibility.”

            “Ah, the sample, right…” Umbriel finds it easier to focus on the professional aspect of her proposition, brow furrowed as he recalls the complete lack of lab safety they’d both shown. “We ought’a…chuck that one into space.”

            “Maybe. But, how are you feeling?”

            “…I guess alright. Whaddya mean?”

            Vinyl sighs, taking another step forward. It was strange, but she felt her captain’s reluctance to look after himself despite his occupation had much deeper roots than a mere forgetfulness – particularly with his little quirk. Umbriel stares blankly at her approach, somehow unconcerned at her encroaching on his space. As always. Between the fearsome edge of his tongue and seemingly endless confidence…he didn’t seem to know quite what to do with himself. Vinyl reaches out tentatively – as though she’d be touching the Ruin’s remains a second time – and places a hand on Umbriel’s cotton-candy-mottled forearm. Somehow, she expected more crumbling buildings.

            “…This is a lot to take in, Captain. You’ve been through a lot. You’re bound to be a lil’ shaken.”

            “Mmm.”

            “ _Captain_.”

            “… _What?_ ” Umbriel teeters on a snarl. “I jus’ wanna do my work for now. I’ll be fine. Work helps.”

            Figuring it was best not to push it, Vinyl retreats, dusting off her sweater with the same hand she’d reached out to him with. “Alright. Just makin’ sure.” Opting to bring the mood up, she places her hands on her hips instead and hops into a wide-legged stance, striking a goofily triumphant pose. “Now, our weekly objective: trifle around some old-ass decrepit Hylotl library that I’ll look up! You know they know everyone else’s business!”

            “Right, right, in between on-call jobs. I gotta bring the pixels home somehow.” Umbriel snorts like the crackle of an old CRT TV shutting off. It relieved Vinyl to hear him emote – and an opportunity to get him off this depressing dreadnaught.

            “…Oh? Oh. Right. You were gonna put out an ad for that, right? Doctor-slash-field-medic-for-hire?”

            “Yep, did that just the other day. I even got a call in already. Some Apex rebel commander guy named Jorji. Hero of the people, real enthusiastic. Sounds like a hotshot.”

            “Did he really sound like a hotshot to you, or just hot?” Vinyl beams mischievously. “You seem you’d be into heroic types. Opposites attr—”

            “Hey, I ain’t no decent ship cap’n yet, but I _order_ you to _stop talkin’ right now_.” Umbriel flares at her, turning on a heel in a huff. “We’ll see ‘bout our commander later, his request for intake ain’t at least for a couple days. Let’s clean up that lab and get to researchin’.”

\--

            “Oi, Pete!”

            A booming, electric voice echoes off the elaborate, ramshackle framework of durasteel beams and cranes that make up Penguin Pete’s pit stop, almost startling a welding penguin off the top of a vintage-edition Letheia cruiser. Several more penguins perk up, as the majority of Pete’s workforce, and glare blankly at the origin of the shout: Isobu, stomping down the stairs of the Ark with a swing in her step and a grin on her face. Pete pokes his head out and frowns from behind a wall of his “office” – an old captain’s quarters, now halved and sheltering little more than a high-tech, but worn-out desk, various knickknacks and ship parts, and a paper lantern. The lantern casts eerie orange light and dark shadows across his grizzled features, but Isobu remains unintimidated. One needed to try harder than simply being a man with a bitchy face and big beard to rattle her neutron-packed core.

            As soon as she draws close enough to confirm she’s the one who called to him, Pete speaks up. “What’s a bright-brand-and-bushy-tailed lil’ lass like you lookin’ for from an old man like me?”

            Isobu slaps a hand on the wall of his office and leans her weight onto it, placing the other hand on her hip. “This ‘lil’ lass’ expected Esther to send the message sooner. Name’s Isobu Tert-Butyl, sir, ‘n I’m an Earth escapee. So’s my ship, and it. Fucking. Shows,” she hisses, firing each last word at the wall of his office like they donned full metal jackets.

            Upon hearing her dilemma, Pete slides out from behind the office on his chair, face smoothing into a much more palatable look of amusement. “Ahh, Earth escapee, are ye? Better not bet on my roll’a duct tape for yer ship, then, eh?” His speech reminded Isobu of some corny old pirate movie, but… _strange_. She supposed Earth-based accents didn’t stay undiluted for long in the vacuum of space.

            “Ain’t bettin’ on it workin’ for my FTL drive, that’s fer sure. Ol’ rock’s in a million pieces, so I’d say you ought to hit up yer local moon mine.” Isobu purses her lips and pinches her fingers together, rubbing imaginary Erchius dust through their banded purple tips.

            This is where Pete stops cold, his face falling suddenly. A few of the penguins around him halt their work as well. Isobu can sense the cold chill falling over the shop telling her that she should have listened more closely to Esther. Finally, Pete sucks in a deep breath and rubs the back of his fairly bald head.

            “…Aye, well. S’pose you haven’t heard about our crisis then,” Pete mutters.

            Isobu’s glow flickers. “What crisis?”

            Pete leans back, sighing hard through his nostrils, and begins to pull up a few windows on and around his computer’s screen with a few flicks of his fingers: some show garbled security footage of terrified miners, some internal reports given to Letheia’s main Erchius clients. Most of the actual news clips were Letheia-funded propaganda, but Isobu could already begin to piece it together – much to her own horror. Pete begins to fill in the blanks.

            “Reports of an unknown entity gettin’ itself a rude awakenin’ started floodin’ us not too long ago, then went cold. Seems a couple o’ unlucky souls dug somethin’ up in our main supplier’s mine – Lunar Base 12 – that was none too keen on any of the life ‘round it. All communication got lost after that. Letheia’s got it on lockdown, as well. You wanna get yerself enough Erchius crystals for yer ship, well…there’s yer quest.”

            Isobu is dumbfounded, posture stiffening as she stands upright. “And…rescue operations?”

            “What rescue operations?” Pete’s answer is flippant, but there’s genuine dread in his one good eye. “Y’ seem a bit wet behind the ears, lass, but surely yer not all that naïve.”

            The stiff posture she held before becomes solid with silent fury, plasma muscles tensing and teeming, arms crooked slightly and fists closed tight. “You tellin’ me ain’t no one goin’ out there to save these poor folks an’ you worried ‘bout some damn rocks? You ain’t call a single person for help?”

            A penguin ducks behind the opposite office wall, frightened. Pete blinks, unfazed. “I may got a few screws loose, but I’m not a fool. Unknown moon presences killin’ folks? That there be a suicide mission. Everyone knows that.”

            “Well, slap my best suit on me an’ call in a preacher, ‘cause I’m goin out there, moon presence be damned. And—” she leans in, jabbing a finger in his face. “— _you_ , buckaroo, are gonna put off all yer projects an’ fix my ship right away once you get yer fuckin’ moon rocks as penance for not liftin’ a damn finger for these miners.” Isobu leans back, hands returning to her hips. “Or yer gonna have a hell of a worse time than some moon monster on yer hands.”

            Pete looks her up and down once and raises his hands in mock surrender, chuckling. While it’s clear he knows Isobu isn’t some wannabe vigilante, she almost finds it irritating that he’s so hard to rattle. “Aye, aye, Captain Isobu. You’ll get no guff from me on that. Tell you what – you make it back with the twenty crystals I’ll need, I fix yer ship for free. All you gotta do is get me supply. Deal?” He extends one hand in a gesture of good will, to seal the deal.

            “Deal.” Isobu grasps and shakes his hand with an iron grip, prompting another chuckle from Pete. He rolls back to his computer, shaking out the hand she’d shaken and pulling up a string of coordinates with the other.

            “You got yer S.A.I.L.’s info on hand, by any chance? I can give it the coordinates of the base, and you can beam there directly.”

            As if awaiting its name being called, S.A.I.L. blinks to life on Isobu’s wrist, startling her with a loud “huoooah?!”

            “I am detecting your computer nearby. Simply hit yes on the prompt, and my systems will automatically initiate the data transfer,” the AI explains, speaking over Isobu’s shout of surprise. Pete obliges, grumbling something about _fancy newfangled computer wing-dings_ , and an hourglass appears on the AI’s projected persona. Isobu is thrilled, letting out a high whistle and slapping her thigh with gusto.

            “ _Hoo-ee!_ Ain’t even been a week since I left Earth and I already got me some protectin’ to do!”

            “And minin’,” Pete adds.

            “Yeah, yeah. I can carry a load a’ miners in one arm and yer pink shit in the other.” She’s about to beam herself back up before Pete stops her, lifting one hand out to cover the device on her wrist as a signal for her to hold up. The hard look is back in his eye, but there’s something a little bittersweet about it.

            “…Listen, lass, you best come back in one piece. I ain’t one to take on too many of these projects, but Esther was very clear about ye and yer big destiny, and she an’ I go a ways back. Don’t disappoint the ol’ girl, understand? Don’t be a martyr.” With that, he pulls his hand back, leaving Isobu to contemplate the gravity of her mission in quiet. Blankly, she nods, snapping off another Protectorate salute.

            “I promise, sir.”

            With a push of a button, the hope of the universe fades into seafoam light.

\--

            Back on the ship, Isobu begins to tighten up and double-check her armor, inspecting it for anything that’d compromise its structural integrity. She dons a typical Novakid sheriff’s armor and several belts and pouches crossing her torso and rounding her hips for ammo and supplies, her breastplate and joint guards glinting in the uncertain light of the ship: for some reason, it felt homey to her. While she is gearing up, she decides to take advantage of S.A.I.L.’s mission briefing feature – one bittersweet perk of her captain rank.

            “S.A.I.L., initiate briefing sequence: Lunar Base 12,” she barks, slamming the weapon locker door with one hand and hoisting a steel assault rifle over her shoulder with the other. Another gun – a steel revolver – is tucked into a holster on her belt, next to a sheathed knife. The iron supply had been quite bountiful on Yildun Morass’s lone lush planet, and Isobu had never been one to go in unprepared.

            S.A.I.L. complies. “Lunar Base 12: Rescue and retrieve mission, set on largest moon of [DATA EXPUNGED.] Base is owned by Letheia Corporation, whom has cut off all outside forms of contact for the base. We do not know how many survivors there are. My sensors cannot assess the threat level, nor the nature of the lifeforms left on the moon. You are going in completely blind. I recommend you check your onboard medkit locker before leaving.”

            Isobu lets out a nasally little grunt, which S.A.I.L. can only translate as a _hrrm_. Soon after, the medkit locker hisses open, revealing a pitiful 3-day supply of bandages and all-purpose salves. She’d have to be pretty sparing with her losses…which, fortunately, she was _made_ for. Stuffing the various supplies into her belts as she approaches the teleporter, Isobu draws her Xia-Li Skybiter once more: this draw is cool, like embers in a summer campfire, the glow of its fire element the sun’s last rays over the campgrounds. The act is familiar, forlorn: the sweetness of her strength doused in the bitter grounds of grief and uncertainty. Then, atop the teleporter’s teeming base plate, she readies her stance. With feet planted firmly, Isobu brings the sword in front of her, both hands tensed around the grip of the blade’s hilt.

            “S.A.I.L., select Destination 12 and confirm teleport.”

            “Teleport confirmed. Please stay on the base and keep all appendages inside the base at all times.”

            Isobu can feel herself dissolve like a tablet in water, spilling her particles across spacetime in a neat caravan of pale green-blue as she zaps across galaxies, anomalies and celestial bodies of all kinds. She is hurling herself to those in need, spreading herself to her thinnest to make sure every life she can reach is saved, and the teleporter translates this to the most literal reality. As she can feel the moon’s approach, Isobu braces whatever essence of herself she can brace in a sea of flaming light.

            All at once, the pillar of the heavens crashes onto a cratered surface, and she reforms herself to the tune of wailing sirens.


End file.
